


Mothwoman and The Professor

by TheLadySyk0



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creatures, London, Monsters, Murder, Mystery, Supernatural Creatures, Supernatural Elements, Victorian, Victorian Attitudes, hodag - Freeform, spring heeled jack - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 16:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11165868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadySyk0/pseuds/TheLadySyk0
Summary: Professor Fletcher and Mothwoman toe the line between what is human, and what is not, as they delve into the supernatural underbelly of Victorian London. Solving heinous crimes and keeping order between two realms.





	1. The woman in white

It was a bitterly cold October night in London. Rain billowed down in sheets onto the grey cobblestone streets. The lamps that had not been extinguished sent small shocks of watery pale light below, making lonely little islands of light.

 

A slender figure stepped into one of these pools of light. She was clad entirely in a cream lace dress that billowed roughly with the strong winds. A  broad-brimmed hat was pulled down low, lace dripping down the brim like a veil,  faux roses decorated the band and two long feathers sprouted from among the flowers near the end and billowed across her back. Two dainty little hands wrapped in silk gloves clutched a lace cloak tighter against the chill.

 

The doors and windows of each house were shut tightly against the October chill. In most neighborhoods one would at least see the light of a stray candle in a window, mayhaps from the odd reader or studious book-keeper, but it seemed that on this street there were none.

 

Black crape gave clue as to why these people would be so disinclined. Lengths of fabric secured by black ribbon adorned every other door, a traditional sign of mourning. Too many people have died in this neighborhood.

 

Far too many people.

 

The wind howled and wailed through the streets like a mourner, fluttering the fabric on the doorways like ghosts. The wind whistled lowly and the streetlamps were extinguished one by one, flicking out with a quiet puff of smoke and leaving the street in darkness.

 

The figure looked around, their eyes adjusting to the sudden loss of light. The area was now only lit by the wan light of the moon, casting hazy blue shadows across the street.

 

The wind whipped around the woman, who clutched her hat to her head, lace fluttering around her like the whispers that filled her ears.

 

“Maliit na tupa…” A voice hissed, echoing through the street. High and grating, amusement and malice wrapping around each word like a snake.

 

The woman whipped around, the voice echoed through the street, bouncing off the brick of the houses, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

 

“W-who is...who is there?”  The woman stuttered, looking around in vain for the source of the voice, backing into the extinguished streetlamp.

 

“Oh what a sweet little lamb…” The voice giggled. The woman braced herself against the lamppost and looked around as the voice circled around her. The leathery sound of wings could be heard in the still night, something sharp scraped against the brick of the houses.

 

“Sweet little lamb has wandered too far from home..” The voice giggled from above and the woman shrieked and scrambled away from the lamppost.

 

Perched on top of the lamppost silhouetted in moonlight was the torso of a young woman, long black hair hung from her head and was carried in the breeze like ink in water. Large leathery bat wings made cruel jagged arches against the light of the night sky, sending long shadows over the woman. The torso of the creature ended in a jagged split of offal and entrails where blood oozed down from the wound and onto the lamp post below, what was left of the creature’s spine flicked back and forth eagerly like a cat’s tail. Sharp teeth grinned down at her as the creature giggled.

 

“Poor little lamb.” The creature smiled as a long tongue escaped past it’s lips, nearly a yard long. The slimy pink tongue flexed showcasing the black barbs dotted along its length. “Little lamb has come to the slaughter.”

 

The woman glared at the creature, a finger to her veiled chin in thought. “We were wrong Silas.” She stated seemingly to nobody “It’s not just an ordinary vampire it’s a Manananggal”

 

“DRAT!” Exclaimed a bush on the other side of the street before a lanky man popped up from the foliage like a gopher from it’s hole. “What in the heavens is a Manananggal doing outside of the Philippines?”

 

The woman looked blandly up at the creature “I’ll be sure to ask when we kill it. The rest of her body can’t be far...”

 

The Manananggal hissed down at the pair of them, looking confused and agitated between the two of them “WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?” She demanded, her talons scraping against the post in agitation.

 

“That’s not importa-” The woman began to say before she was interrupted by her companion across the street.

 

“Ello!” The man waved cheerily as he clambered out of the bush, he was a man of slender and aristocratic build, which was accentuated by the fine suit he wore. However, the overly-bright smile, the way he looked at the horrifying creature like a schoolboy that had just found a puppy, and the fact that his foot was still stuck in the bush, told a far different story.

 

The two women watched mildly as the man wiggled and squirmed his way out of the bush.

 

“Ello there!” He finally kicked away the last branches sticking to his pants leg and gave a short bow to the creature. “My name is Professor Silas Fletcher and this is Miss Cydia!”

 

The woman, or Cydia, put a gloved hand to her veiled face. She sighed. “Silas. Why.”

 

He squared his shoulders and gave Cydia an earnest and affronted look. “I was only trying to be polite.”

 

Cydia hissed and pointed up at the Manananggal. “She has killed at _least_ eighty people!”

 

Silas Pushed his gold-rimmed glasses farther up his nose and gave Cydia a judging look. “That is _simply_ no excuse.”

 

The creature rolled their eyes and hissed. “ENOUGH!” The Manananggal shrieked and launched into the air “ENOUGH BICKERING! I WILL TEAR YOUR TONGUES FROM YOUR MOUTHS!”

 

“Silas.” Cydia backed up from the creature. “How do you kill a Manananggal?”

 

Silas reached into a leather messenger bag, past many small colored bottles and bunches of dried herbs to take out a thick black tome. The book was inscribed with gold leaf in bold patterns radiating from the center of the book outward where a large jeweled ruby eye was set into the cover. The monster screeched and flew above their heads as Silas flipped through the book.

 

“Aha!” He put a finger in the air triumphantly. “It says here that as a Manananggal splits from their lower half, it leaves said half vulnerable to attack! If we kill the other half before the upper half can reach it, then the creature will not be able to piece itself back together and will perish!”

 

Cydia nodded. “Good! Go find the other half! I’ll take care of her!”

 

Silas clutched his book to his chest and took off down the street. “RIGHT-O!”

 

“NO!” The creature hissed and turned towards Silas as he ran, his bottles jingling and jangling as he ran down the street. The creature’s tongue whipped out towards Silas, their barbs fully outstretched before-

 

The barbed tongue was caught in a silk glove. The Manananggal screeched as Cydia squeezed the slippery flesh, dark dead blood oozing out of the appendage and seeping into the creamy fabric.

 

The creature howled and attempted to free themselves, tugging desperately from Cydia’s grasp but her hold remained tight.

 

Cydia growled, a low grating and clicking rumble sounding from her throat. “I’m not done with you.”

 

Cydia’s grip tightened and the fragile silk ripped apart down her forearms. The two middle fingers on each hand flexed, long talons ripping through the ends of the gloves to sink into the flesh of the Manananggal. The ripped fabric fell away, falling to the ground, a ceramic pointer finger and pinky finger still trapped within the mangled gloves.

 

Cydia’s actual hands were long and tapered, with only a thumb and two sharp fingers with needle-sharp talons. Her hands were jointed like an insect’s, covered in pearly white plating splattered with the monster’s blood.

 

The Manananggal finally succeeded in pulling their tongue away from Cydia, flesh tearing through her claws with a splatter of blood across the front of her dress.

 

The Manananggal shrieked and flew, retreating from Cydia to brace herself against the dark brick of a house.

 

“YOU! YOU!” The Manananggal pointed an accusing clawed finger at the woman. “You are not a human!”

 

Cydia looked down to her ruined gloves and back up at the creature. “No.” She flexed her wickedly sharp hands, her face still obscured under the lace veil. “No, I most certainly am not.”

 

Cydia took a clawed hand to her hat and ripped off the offending garment, cream faux roses spilling onto the street in a flutter of petals and lace.

 

An unnatural face looked back at the creature, large glassy black eyes stood out from a porcelain-like face, what at first appeared to be opulent feathers from the lady’s hat were in actuality long antennae, twitching restlessly from her curled pinned-up hair. A low grating growl came from the woman, she opened her mouth revealing needle-sharp teeth like the bones of fish. Something dove-brown and jointed slithered out from her mouth with a sickly low sound. The thing split apart down it’s center to reveal insect-like barbed mandibles that spread her cheeks apart into a gruesome sharp-mouthed grimace.

 

Her lacy shawl fell from her shoulders and a pair of long creamy-brown wings fluttered and twitched.

 

The Manananggal gave Cydia a sharp-toothed grin. “Oh I see…” She giggled and jumped from windowsill to windowsill, her claws digging harsh grooves into the brick as she gave Cydia a ruthless grin. “The human is keeping a pet.”

 

Cydia hissed, she lunged towards the Manananggal her claws outstretched. “I am _no_ pet!” she screeched as she slammed the monster into a brick wall.

 

 

Silas Jogged through the London streets looking for _someplace_ a Manananggal would keep their lower half.

 

“Alright.” Silas mused as he looked out into the night. “If I was a bloodthirsty creature that split myself in half, where in the Dickens would I keep my derriere?”

 

Behind him the two monster women screeched and clawed ferally at one another. The Manananggal took Cydia in her spined tongue and slammed the other woman into a lamppost, bending the metal harshly with a groan. Cydia retaliated by grabbing the creature’s tongue and smacking her violently to the ground, the cobblestone breaking apart with the shock.

 

“Well I do say I have the better half of this job.” Silas muttered as he flicked through the tome. “Ha! Half! Because this creature splits themselves in half!”

 

“Cydia!” Silas turned to yell excitedly at his partner. “I just thought of the most apt joke for this predicament! Would you like to hear it my dear?”

 

The Manananggal currently had Cydia pinned to the pavement, their barbed tongue lashing across her and ripping the lace of her gown. “NOW IS NOT THE TIME SILAS!” Cydia slashed her claws against the creature’s face and the monster relented long enough for her to gain the upper hand, using her wings to push the creature into brick wall out of Silas’ sight, Cydia following to pounce on the creature.

 

Silas frowned. Darn, it never seemed like Cydia had time for a good joke. Not now Silas I’m not in the mood, not now Silas I’m eating breakfast, not now Silas I’m killing something. Bah!

 

Silas hummed and looked out into the night. Manananggals cannot stray too far from their lower halves, the creature must connect by sunrise or perish, and since the other half is the weaker of the two one would imagine that a Manananggal wouldn’t dare to leave it far. Silas came to a wrought-iron fence behind which there was a garden, a small scuffling was brought to his attention. He peeked pensively through the shrubbery and foliage, adjusting his glasses.

 

A pair of legs in a brown skirt tapped a sandal-ed foot impatiently on the other side of the fence, a large hollow in their gut where the Manananggal took most of the organs when they split.

 

“Hey! Hey you!” Silas yelled at the bottom half which stiffened at his call, turning towards Silas before breaking out into a run.

 

“Ma’m!” Silas scrambled awkwardly up the fence “No Ma'am stop!” Silas reached the top of the fence only for his boot to get stuck in the twisted metal. He fell over the fence, flipping awkwardly upside-down  and into the garden on the other side, his messenger bag flipping over onto his back. Several oddly shaped and brightly colored bottles fell from the bag and onto his head.

 

“Ow! Ow!” Silas hissed with pain as each bottle tumbled from his bag, over his head and onto the grass below. “For heaven’s sake!”

 

With of the lanky man’s weight on one boot, Silas’ foot slowly slid from his shoe and the man tumbled into the garden with an unceremonious thud.

 

Silas grumbled and picked up the bottles that had fallen from his bag. Once he had put everything back into it’s proper place he retrieved his shoe from the top of the wrought iron. Hopping as he replaced his boot he looked out into the dark garden.

 

“Hello?” He asked hesitantly. “Ma'am? Are you there?”

 

Through the darkness the sound of sandals scraping against stone pricked at Silas’ ears. He took the gilded tome from his bag. He flipped through yellowed and aged pages until he came to a detailed illustration of a manananggal in the process of tearing themselves in half, their skin ripping apart as the upper half leaves to claim its victims.

 

“The Manananggal, a vampire of the exotic orient, is known to tear itself in twain before it hunts. This allows the undead creature far superior maneuverability than it’s european counterparts and-”

 

Silas skimmed to the bottom of the page.

 

“Once you have found the lower, more vulnerable half of the Manananggal, you will find that it has many of the same weaknesses as it’s vampiric counterparts. Garlic, holy water, stakes and sunlight are all viable methods. This author recommends a paste of crushed garlic and Holy water that one would spread over the area in which the creature had cleft itself in twain. If you cannot make thy own garlic paste, market purchased shall do.”

 

Silas nodded to himself and rummaged through his bag. He snapped a clove of garlic from the dried bundle, pulled a colored vial from his pack and-

 

Suddenly the dismembered lower torso took a running start from it’s hiding place, kicking Silas roughly in the stomach. Silas was knocked over wheezing into the grass, his glasses askew.

 

“MA’M THERE IS NO NEED FOR THAT!” Silas yelped as the Manananggal kicked harshly at him.

 

He grabbed the lower half of the Manananggal by its foot “AH HA!” He laughed triumphantly as the lower half tried to hop awkwardly away from him. In its desperate kicking the Manananggal fell, toppling Silas with her into a nearby bush.

 

Silas struggled, pinning the thrashing lower half beneath him. “Now now!” he chastised “Hold still ma'am!”

 

Silas uncorked one of his many bottles, popped a clove of garlic into the holy water and shook it, he leaned down and-

 

A child stood on the back stoop of their house looking at Silas who was sitting on top of the Manananggal, the split of the creature hidden by the foliage of the bush. They held a little candle in their hand and looked wide-eyed at Silas.

 

Silas put his hands on his hips awkwardly. “Ah. Yes. Hello little one.”

 

The child continued to stare.

 

Silas looked down at the creature and then back up at the child. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

 

The child turned back into the house “Mummy! Mummy! There's a pervert in our garden!”

 

Silas sighed and looked down at the creature who was still thrashing. “See what you did? Honestly.”

 

 

The Manananggal screamed as it launched towards Cydia, their claws outstretched and their barbed tongue waving. It knocked Cydia back, bricks coming loose from the street with the force of the attack.

 

The creature pinned Cydia down, grinning sharp-toothed at the other woman. “I will make you a deal.” she cooed “ I will give you half my hunting territory if you help me kill your owner.

 

Cydia growled. “Tempting,” she said with a harsh bite of sarcasm “Though I’m afraid that I will have to pass.”

 

The Manananggal frowned down at her. “Then you would rather help a human then one of your own kind? You are a _traitor_.”

 

Cydia knocked her back, slamming her to the brick of the street and pinning her there. “They’re people.” she whispered in an ancient tongue, her mandibles clacking dryly in her mouth.

 

“They’re _cattle_.” The Manananggal responded in kind.

 

 

The child came back from the house, a woman wielding a broom in tow. “EY you hooligan!” the woman waved the broom at Silas. “Rascal! Hound! You let her go this instant!”

 

Silas poured the holy water and garlic mixture over the bloodied split. The woman shrieked as the lower half of the Manananggal stood up, revealing the bloodied end. The creature shuddered as the holy water bubbled and burned its skin.

 

The other half of the Manananggal howled where Cydia had her pinned, shaking violently and frothing, scorch marks bubbling up from where she had split from her lower half as if she was still connected to it.

 

The lower half began to ignite in the middle of the garden, the woman hid the child’s eyes and shrieked as the body convulsed and burned, dropping to it’s knees before bursting into ashes.

 

Under Cydia the creature burst into flame. The Manananggal laughed, fire licking from it’s maw as it was consumed in flame. “This means nothing…” She hissed, her flesh turning to ash and falling from the bone, exposing her jaw as she spoke. “Cattle are born to be slaughtered…” With one final shriek the Manananggal howled a high unearthly scream, shaking violently before bursting into embers.

 

Cydia looked down at where the creature had laid, her own talons splattered with her blood as the Manananggal's ashes floated through the street.

 

The mother and child gaped at where the Manananggal used to be, now only a sooty spot on the garden path. “What the bloody hell was that?” the woman screeched.

 

Silas put his hands to his hips. “Manananggal, filipino vampire.”

 

The mother threw up her hands “A BLOODY FILIPINO VAMPIRE ASS JUST BURST INTO FLAMES IN MY BLOODY GARDEN AND-”

 

Silas tutted her, shaking his head “Now really Madame, that kind of language in front of a child.”

 

The woman scowled and advanced upon Silas her broom at the ready, “NOW YOU-” she hit him with her broom “GET OUT OF ME GARDEN” she swatted him with the broom again “AND TAKE YER BLOODY VAMPIRE BOTTOMS WITH YE!”

 

Silas sputtered as she hit him with the broom “Ah! Ma’am! Stop! There’s no need to-! Fine I’m going!”  

 

Silas scrambled over the fence once more, still accosted by the broom wielding woman as he awkwardly scaled the fence and dropped to the other side.

 

“You would think you would be a bit more grateful regarding the situation!” Silas yelled when he was safely on the other side of the fence.

 

The woman grunted and threw her broom at him which clattered against the fence.

 

Silas put his nose haughtily in the air and turned away. “Absolutely no gratitude” he sniffed.

 

Silas jogged back to Cydia who was sitting despondently in the street. He put his hand to her shoulder gently. “Cydia?” he asked softly.

 

Cydia looked up at him, her big black eyes expressionless. “...I ruined my gloves again…” she whispered.

 

Silas offered her a hand and Cydia let him help her up. Silas took one look at her tattered and bloodied dress and quickly took off his own jacket to wrap around her shoulders. “Never mind that.” he answered as he stooped to pick up the ripped silk gloves. “They’re just gloves, are you ok?”

 

Cydia huffed. “Between the two of us, I’m the one with the armored skin.”

 

Silas laughed and bent down to retrieve her hat from the ground “Doesn’t mean I can’t worry about you.” He plopped the hat onto her head and they both giggled lightly at that.

 

“We probably shouldn’t be here when the coppers arrive.” Cydia looked nervously down the street.

 

Silas followed her gaze and nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He offered her his arm “I’ll escort you home then.”

 

 

The home of Professor Silas Fletcher was deceptively understated, Ivy hung to the side of the dark brick house that peered over the street inquisitively. A tall wrought iron gate surrounded the property that was draped in heavily with honeysuckle, it was only the protective runes that wound around the gate that would give a clue to the true nature of this house, though etched intricately into the metal so subtly, those who passed by would usually mistake the magic for simple scratches.

 

Of course there was gossip about the solitary professor in the neighborhood. The man came from a noble family, was well-learned, though the man’s ridiculous notions earned him exile from the London scientific community. He could be seen at ridiculous hours trouncing about on his roof, or through the garden with a mason jar of frogs of some sort, or rushing through the neighborhood like a madman with the devil himself on his heels.

 

He was considered by most a lunatic, though a harmless lunatic. Housewives at their kitchen windows would watch him as he went through the neighborhood, tripping over fences and such, magnifying glass in his hands, the same way one would idly watch birds.

 

It was no secret then when seemingly out of nowhere the woman arrived.

 

It the rare moments she would be seen, she would always be wearing a veil that obscured her face, large luxurious feathers in her hat and long silk gloves.

 

At first a couple of crueler souls suggested that she was so hideously ugly that the veil was a necessity for those around her to keep their lunches. Though a couple of people swore to have seen her at rare moments where the veil was lifted part way and that she had perfect pearly skin like a doll's.

 

Another theory was that she was incredibly vain and hid her skin from any spot of sunlight. Another theory was that she was a criminal hiding from the law or perhaps someone very much so famous who wished not to be seen with the neighborhood’s lovable idiot.

 

She seemed to live him, some thought them lovers, cousins, a sister may chance?

 

Some thought that perhaps the elder Fletchers had sent him a housemaid to keep an eye on him and make sure young master Fletcher didn’t drown in a bog trying to catch frogs.

 

Either way, the neighborhood watched the couple idly from their windows with curiosity, and if any of them had been awake when Cydia returned home the way she was now, covered in blood with her dress torn.

 

Well then wouldn’t that be gossip-worthy?

 

Silas led Cydia up to the front gate, passed the runes which glowed gently as she passed in recognition of what she was and up the stairs.

 

The Fletcher home was furnished with rich dark wood and plush crimson carpeting. The walls were covered in bookshelves that were teeming with leather-bound books from around the world, some in German, French, or English, some in languages humans had not spoken in a thousand years and some rare ones in languages humans has never spoken. Hundreds of miss-matched terrariums teemed with life, croaking and buzzing where they sat along the walls and on tables. A large chart hung on the wall that seemed to describe the organs of mermaids.

 

On a plush red couch off to the side, something tragically hideous was snoozing happily. When the door closed one of it’s floppy ears perked up. It looked up and when it saw Professor Fletcher it’s lizard-like tail began to wag.

 

“Oh Henry!” Silar cooed and went over to the creature. “We’re back!”

 

“Henry” was about the size of an English bulldog and had the face to match, say for the bulbous goat-like eyes, the wide mouth filled with flat human-like teeth, two boar-like tusks, and the large horns on either side of it’s head. The creature had sharp spines going down its back, green mossy fur and a lizard’s tail.

 

“I don’t know why you keep that thing around.” Cydia sighed.

 

“He’s not a thing.” Silas said as he scratched the monster’s ears “He’s a hodag.” He kissed the monster on the top of its head and the monster licked his face as a puppy would.

 

“And he’s a good hodag! Yes he is!” He continued, rubbing the monster’s belly who cooed appreciatively and panted happily.

 

Silas sat down on the red couch, the hodag immediately put its head in his lap with a happy sigh. Silas motioned for Cydia to sit in the chair across from him.

 

Cydia lowered into the chair and took off her hat, rubbing where her antennae rubbed against the fabric.

 

“Now my dear..” Silas mused as he pulled a sewing kit from a nearby drawer “Lets see to getting those gloves fixed.”

 

Cydia watched him as he worked, the hodag sleeping in his lap. Finally he held the glove up, tested his seam and when it held together he smiled and handed it to Cydia “There we go! Good as new!”

 

Cydia tried on the repaired glove, her three fingered hands once again masked by the two prosthetic fingers the glove contained. “Thank you.” she murmured. She looked about the house almost shyly. “For everything really…”

 

Silas smiled at her. “It’s no trouble! You have been fantastic help these last couple of months! And however long you would like to stay you are more than welcome!”

 

They quieted after that, Silas continuing to fix the other glove, the buzzing of the terrariums and the hodag's snores replacing the conversation. “You know…” he looked at her patiently as he sewed. “You still haven’t told me where you came from…”

 

Cydia only sat there silently, watching the sheen of silk on her newly mended glove. Her gaze seemed far away as she watched the light play over the rich fabric, the glove giving her at least the appearance of being human.

 

Silas huffed but smiled. “That’s alright. Whenever you feel ready.”

 

Cydia looked at him, her glassy black eyes staring into his green. “And what if I’m never ready?”

 

Silas smiled ruefully. “Then I’ll never know. I'll admit to being curious, but your privacy comes above my curiosity.”

 

Cydia shook her head. “You’re too trusting. I could have killed you when you brought me here, I hope you know that.”

 

Silas smiled at her and laughed “Maybe! But you haven’t killed me yet so I’ll take that as a good sign!”

 

Cydia laughed as well.

 

She watched him mend her other glove, smiling absently as he worked, the most hideous thing she had ever seen peacefully asleep on his lap. He was a different sort of human, the kind of human she didn’t know could exist until the day his earnest face had showed on the other side of her cage door, stolen key in hand and a whispered promise to free her.

 

Every day she had told herself that she would leave, leave the house and this confusing human but she had stayed and helped him whenever she could. He seemed to attract danger like honey attracts flies, and she had spent much of her time with him so far wondering how on Earth he survived this long without her.

 

“There!” He held up the second mended glove.

 

She held out her hand and he obligingly helped her into it.

 

“So…” he asked “How is it?”

 

She flexed her hand, the little prosthetic fingers moving their little joints in sync.

 

“It’s perfect Silas.”


	2. The hound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mysterious happenings plague the west side of London. The spectral hound stalks these streets. A fair lady with a dark past needs help. Can our duo help her and uncover the horrible secret behind these terrible events?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Special shout out to Queenlolth here on Ao3 who is helping me edit!
> 
> This chapter has been edited to address some questions people had! I hope you enjoy! Please do comment any thoughts you have!

Cydia was sleeping peacefully, her clawed hands under her head and her wings folded demurely behind her. She was on top of one of the thick bookcases in the library, early morning light gently streaking through the hazy curtains.

 

“Cyyyyydiaaaa….” A high-pitched sing-song voice cut through the early-morning calm. “Cyyyyyydiaaaaaa!”

 

A puppet perched on top of a broom handle popped up above the edge of the bookcase, intruding into Cydia’s space with it’s grotesque little stitched smile. The knitted puppet was decorated into the rough form of a stereotypical vampire, with a little velvet black cape, fangs and wide-set black button eyes.

 

“Cyyydiaaaa” The puppet was shaken where it sat on the end of the boomstick with a jingle,the wooden pole of the broom sticking out from where a hand would have been, their little knitted arms flapping wildly as they were shaken from side-to-side. A little silver bell served as the clasp of its cape. “Waaaake uuuuup…. Cyyydiaaaaa….. Siiilaaaasss made breakfaaaaaaast Cyyyyydiaaaaa theres toaaaaaaast Cydiaaaaa….”

 

With a swipe of her claws Cydia broke off the end of the broomstick, puppet included. She peeked over the edge of the bookcase just long enough to throw the silly thing back at Silas. Silas sputtered as the puppet slapped across his face, the broom clattering to the floor. The puppet fell to the ground with a sad dejected squeak. The first casualty of the morning.

 

Silas gasped “My dear Count, what has she done to you!” Silas rescued the little puppet and put it on a hand. “Honestly Cydia.” Silas put his hands on his hips, the puppet jingling again with the action “You can’t sleep in forever.”

 

Cydia glared at him from where she was sprawled on top of the bookcase “...Moths are nocturnal..”

 

“Yes well..” Silas motioned with the hand still covered by the puppet, jingling as it went “You’re a Moth _ woman _ and women always awake at the crack of dawn.”

 

Cydia propped her head up on a hand and looked down at him. She smiled down at him with a teasing predatory glint, running a claw across the wood.  “And just how many women do you know? Oh one who still plays with puppets…”

 

Silas blushed and he quickly tucked the puppet into a back pocket. “Plenty.” He answered testily, his eyes looking off to the side and his shoulders tense.

 

“Your mother doesn’t count, dear.” Cydia teased, batting her eyelashes and grinning sharp-toothed at him.

 

The blush across Silas’ face worsened, red blooming across his ears as well. “You-You-” He stuttered. He snatched up the shortened broomstick and pointed it at Cydia. “You-You just come down for breakfast already. The eggs are getting cold.”

 

Cydia chuckled as Silas practically ran out of the room. He was too fun to play with. She stretched out her wings, braced her claws against the edge of the bookcase and jumped, gently fluttering to the floor of the library, setting down gracefully and folding her wings behind her back.

 

The first night she had been here, frightened, hissing, and feral, Silas had moved her into a guest bedroom on the second floor. There were some nights where she slept on top of the grand canopy above the bed, though she had a couple of places she favored. There was the upper cabinets in the grand kitchen which were quite warm and private, though she tended to be woken early there when Silas came down to putter about in the kitchen at ungodly hours. They do smell like good food though, and that certainly was a mark in their favor.

 

The attic certainly had it’s charm, there was an oval stain-glassed window that splayed lovely bursts of color across the floor during sunrise and sunset. The window was also hinged and Cydia would sometimes crawl out to hunt a bat or two, eating her snack on the roof. She spent her time up there sprawled across boxes of books and trunks of ladies dresses. She had asked Silas about them, and with a bit of sadness in his voice told her that she was free to use any of them as he doubted they would ever be used again. Each trunk was packed with a sprig of dried lilac and in one of them she found a lock of long auburn hair obviously kept as a keepsake, she didn’t dare touch it, feeling as if she had intruded onto something private and forgotten.

 

Under the grand staircase there was a hidden door that led to a small abandoned closet, Cydia had been building a nest in there for quite a while, and the small cubby was filled with newspaper, old rags, leaves and various knick knacks. There was an old, small piece of ornamental moulding on the stairs that could be removed from inside this little nook to make a peephole, and Cydia found with satisfaction that she could observe the comings and goings of the house quite clearly there.

 

So far Professor Fletcher had been a fantastically accepting host. He allowed her full and unquestioned reign of the home, and for a moment Cydia felt guilty about throwing the puppet at him, but for heaven’s sakes there was just some things she wouldn’t tolerate, and being woken up by a vampire sock puppet is one of them.

 

Silas stood in the kitchen, humming as he cooked. The hodag was lazily spread across the kitchen floor, Silas patted its scaly belly and passed the creature a handful of kitchen scraps including eggshells and bacon fat. The hodag greedily ate the rubbish, the eggshells crunching loudly through the kitchen, licking its chops with satisfaction.

 

Silas laid out three settings at the kitchen table, serving three identical portions of toast and soft-boiled eggs.

 

Cydia sat down at the table, smoothing down her gown and picking up a fork. She looked over at the third place setting. “I see you’re feeding your hobgoblin agai-”

 

Suddenly the legs of Cydia’s chair snapped and the cryptid tumbled to the floor with a shriek, scrabbling at the table and tearing the tablecloth as she fell.

 

Silas put his hands on his hips, he pointed at Cydia who was seething with rage on the floor with an oven-mitted hand “See what you did? You made her mad.”

 

Silas went to the third place-setting and gently cracked open the egg, sitting it upright in the egg-cup. “She didn’t mean to call you a goblin, Mrs. Appleby.” He soothed.

 

He turned towards Cydia “Hobs, not hobgoblins, are spirits or fey that do household chores in exchange for a few pleasantries.”

 

Silas cut the toast into two neat triangles. “Mrs.Appleby likes a soft-boiled egg and some toast every wednesday morning. However if you displease a hob they tend to make it amply known”

 

Cydia picked herself up from the ground and sighed, her eyes closed in resolution “I’m sorry Mrs. Appleby, for calling you a goblin.”

 

With a loud “SNAK” the chair that had been broken suddenly stood back up. Cydia looked over it, the previous damage, imperceptible as if it had never happened “It’s fixed!”

 

Silas nodded knowingly. “She really is fantastic at what she does.”

 

With their attention turned to the miraculously fixed chair, they heard a small “Fwip” sound through the kitchen and something streaked through just beyond the corner of their visions. On top of the table there was now a single notecard, elegantly embossed and accented with gold leaf-

 

“Why thank you dear, it is always nice to be appreciated for your work- Mrs. Appleby”

 

Silas smiled at the card “You’re very much welcome!”

 

Looking over at the third place setting, the egg and the toast were gone, not a lick or crumb of it left and the dishes already washed and dried.

 

Cydia sat down at the table gingerly, picking at the egg and toast. Silas sat across from her as they ate.

 

“So what is it that you were planning to do today?” Cydia asked “Since you were so keen on waking me this morning.”

 

Silas patted his mouth with a napkin before he spoke. He passed a newspaper across the table. The main headline spoke of mysterious disturbances along the west side of the city, sudden gusts of wind, upturned carriages, odd howling and fog that seemed to come from nowhere. “What do you make of that?”

 

Cydia looked at the paper with interest, her antennae flicking behind her back. “Demon?”

 

Silas shrugged and shook his head “We’ll just have to see for ourselves!”

 

A whoosh sounded through the kitchen and Cydia and Silas turned to where a white wicker basket was suddenly sitting on the countertop, a tiny elegant note on top like before.

 

“I took the liberty of packing you both a lunch, have fun you two.-Mrs.Appleby”

 

Silas grinned clutching the card “Thank you Mrs. Appleby! You’re too kind!”

  
  


Silas fetched them a hansom cab, the cabman was a surly-looking fellow, with a red nose and sour-looking eyes. He huffed with disbelief when Silas asked him to drive to the west side of London where the disturbances had been greatest, but acquiesced when Silas handed him a considerable sum.

 

They drove aimlessly through the west side of the city. Driving westwards from Devonshire house towards Piccadilly, down the London streets, past posh English houses that were opulent to the point of being obnoxious. 

 

Silas read the paper as they continued, having accumulated every article on the subject of the mysterious happenings that appeared in all the major periodicals and tribunes. The odd nature of the disturbances, and the posh and fashionable people involved, guaranteed that there were a fair portion of articles dedicated to the subject.

 

Silas hummed as he looked over the articles, circling important clues with a grease pencil as he saw them. “Cydia listen to this,” he fluffed out one newspaper in particular with excitement “Mr and Mrs Thaddeus Stanbury reported that they were driving to a garden party, the weather inclement and well suited for an occasion of the sort, when their carriage was overtaken by a great dull blanket of fog, so thick that they could hardly see in front of the lead horses. The horses of the carriage, who were very well trained, bucked and whinnied and pulled upon their tethers such that the driver was unable to control them, thrashing and panicking as they were. It was then that the couple heard what they reported to be a low howl echo through the area, so fearsome was it that it shook the both of them to their very souls.”

 

Silas looked up at Cydia over the paper, practically buzzing with excitement. 

 

Cydia arched an eyebrow and waved her hand dismissively “...And? So far it seems like a bunch of over-sensationalized drivel.”

 

Silas put down the paper and glared at her, his glasses at the tip of his nose “You have absolutely no sense of mystery and wonder.”

 

“It’s called being  _ practical  _ my dear” Cydia cross her arms “So far it sounds like two overly-dramatic rich sops with nothing better to do than getting  _ hysterical _ over the weather and some stray dog.”

 

“Well they  _ continued _ -” Silas picked up the paper again, looking down his long nose at Cydia haughtily “As the occupants of the carriage peered nervously into the fog, wondering what horror the horses could sense that they could not, Mrs. Agatha Stanbury reports that she could see a large black shape moving through the mist. As it moved closer to the carriage they could see that it was as large as a small horse or a lion, black as night with eyes that blazed like blue hellfire. The creature turned towards them, mist dripping from it’s maw, it howled and ran towards the carriage, licks of blue flame at its feet, the pawprints burning blue before subsiding into ash. It jumped onto the carriage, shaking the compartment roughly and causing Mrs Stanbury to faint immediately. The creature jumped off of the carriage, knocking it to the ground before jumping back into the fog, leaving nothing but it’s sooty footprints.”

 

Silas looked at Cydia expectantly as she considered this new evidence.

 

“Why do the women always faint?” Cydia mused.

 

“Really now…” Silas threw down the paper “ _ That’s _ what you’ve gleaned from this?”

 

“Well it’s a legitimate question.” Cydia put her hands to her hips defensively.

 

“Not all women can have your iron constitution.” Silas waved the paper for emphasis “She is obviously a very rare and delicate flower.”

 

Cydia took one of the many newspapers littering the cab, rolled it and threw it at Silas, knocking off his glasses and making him sputter “She is a creature of flesh and blood, not some doll. The husband remained conscious!”

 

“Well maybe the husband has seen more of the darker and more sinister parts of this world, have you ever thought of that?”

 

Cydia angrily pointed outside the carriage window at the disgustingly opulent houses, one particularly lavish house had gold leaf applied to the delicate moulding that surrounded a grand master entryway “In this neighborhood? I doubt that they’ve ever had to dress themselves much less dealt with the ‘darker and more sinister parts of this world’ I mean Silas just look at them.”

 

Cydia glared at a passing home, the butler opening the door for a well-dressed couple while a nanny looked over a pair of children playing with a poodle. A gilded motorcar sat ostentatiously in the driveway. “Those ones even have a  _ motorcar _ the pompous inbred bastards…”

 

Silas rolled his eyes and turned back to the paper, his eyes widening with surprise as he read. “...There may be some merit to your suspicions, as silly as they may seem…”

 

“My suspicions are never silly. I am an animal, therefore they are animal instincts. ” Cydia glared at him before leaning over to peer at the paper with interest, her antennae flicking with interest “Why? What have you found?”

 

“You are not an animal.” Silas answered absentmindedly “But the account continues- The fair Mrs. Stanbury has suffered a hard bit of luck over the past couple of years, she remarried after having been previously widowed when her husband and child died in a house fire…”

 

“I’m more animal than you.” Cydia answered Silas’ previous remark. “And that’s terrible, that poor woman.”

 

Silas kept reading “When Mrs.Stanbury awoke she was hysterical, crying out ‘The beast, the beast took them from me, it took them from me and it has now come for me!’ she wailed according to passersby who came to their aid when the carriage crashed. She was later taken home to be tended to by a family doctor….Nothing more regarding the case has been stated by the family…” 

 

Silas hit the paper with a hand grinning with satisfaction“It sounds like a black shuck! The vengeful spirit of a dog! One look and they will haunt you for years!”

 

Cydia smiled, mischief sparkling in her black glassy eyes “We’re going to need to talk to Mrs. Agatha Stanbury.”

  
  
  


The Stanbury home was a sprawling, castle-like home as to make the furnishings of a cathedral seem modest. Peacocks roamed lazily around a massive yard trimmed with roses. Massive walls covered in ivy surrounded the property and shielded its occupants against the prying eyes of the public.

 

Silas stood at the gate, elegant copper swirls gleaming down at him as he fiddled with his messenger bag.

 

Cydia leaned against the stones outside. She tapped a finger impatiently where her arms were crossed “You don’t know how to procure an audience with the fair Miss Stanbury, do you?”

 

Silas bit his lip, staring up at the elegant copper curls as if they spelled out his doom in cursive. “I will admit that my...sudden departure from the upper echelons of society may make the matter difficult.”

 

Cydia tapped a finger to her chin pretending to be deep in thought “You mean the time you started talking about fairies and everyone assumed you went insane?”

 

Silas sighed and removed his gold-rimmed glasses. He took a silk handkerchief from his front pocket to clean the lenses. “Yes, the time I started talking about fairies and everyone assumed I went insane.”

 

Cydia stood up from where she was leaning against the wall to stand next to Silas, her hands clasped demurely together. “We could always kidnap her.” she suggested lightly.

 

Silas looked to Cydia with a start. “Cydia! Good heavens!”

 

Cydia cocked her head and Silas could see a wicked smile form under the lace veil. “It would be far easier than begging for an audience with  _ her majesty _ and much more dignified. I could fly to her window in the night and-”

 

Silas squeezed his eyes shut with disgust and waved off Cydia’s plan “That’s horrible! She is already traumatized enough.” He took out a card from a pocket of his messenger bag and quickly scribbled something onto the little scrap. He waved down a passing porter, a well-dressed boy no older than 13 who peered curiously at them from the other side of the gate.

 

He handed the youth the card. “Please see to it that your mistress receives this.” Silas implored.

 

The boy took the card with interest, nodding at Silas before walking briskly back to the house.

 

“I doubt that a note from a stranger would convince her.” Cydia remarked once the boy was gone, walking up the massive staircase of the front entryway and disappearing into the house.

 

Silas sighed, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “I would have to agree with your assumption, I could only hope that she recognizes the family name and not the individual, but my particular brush with ‘insanity’ is unfortunately well known in these circles.”

 

They turned away from the gate and began to walk down the street “Still, we must try the usual ways before resorting to more unconventional methods...”

 

Cydia raised a finger to interject.

 

“No kidnapping.” Silas chastised her.

 

Cydia lowered her finger. She raised her head defiantly. “I could have been suggesting something else…”

 

Silas chuckled “Except, remember that I know you. We’ll find another way, we’ll just have to-”

 

Someone shouted and both Silas and Cydia turned to see who it was. The porter was running after them, shouting and begging for them to stop. They stopped obligingly and let the youth catch up to them, panting as he finally reached them.

 

“Miss Stanbury-” The youth gasped and put his hands to his knees, trying to regain his breath “Has accepted your request.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief “She wishes for you to come see her immediately!”

 

Silas and Cydia exchanged a look.

 

“Well that was easier than I expected.” Cydia whispered.

  
  


The boy led them through the gates, past the yard that still teemed with peacocks and to the front steps of the manor. The peacocks scattered at Cydia’s approach, seemingly understanding what she was better than the two humans. She watched them flee rather smugly.

 

The boy then led them into the house, down marbled floors lined with rich carpets to a beautiful sitting room. A pretty woman wearing a pretty silk gown was sitting there waiting for them, stock straight in a chair, her pretty doe-brown eyes widened to near panic and fiddling with a teacup. When she saw Silas she jumped up from her seat.

 

She clasped her hands together and smiled, frightened yet hopeful “Oh Silas! It is so good to see you!”

 

Silas was taken aback. “Agatha? Agatha Archer?”

 

Agatha smiled, folding her hands together demurely. “Stanbury now… it was Bates for a while.” Her smiled turned sad and she gently touched a locket at her throat. “...well it’s just Stanbury now…”

 

Cydia looked between the two of them “You know each other?”

 

Silas smiled and extended a hand towards Agatha. “We were engaged briefly before… before um…”

 

Agatha smiled ruefully “My parents broke off the engagement when it happened. Too much of a scandal.” She looked indignant for a moment, her delicate face pinched with anger “Even though they knew it wasn’t true! You took care of that ghost for them after all!”

 

Cydia looked back at Agatha “A ghost you say?”

 

Agatha nodded, a grim expression on her face. “Every Wednesday morning in our old home, things would break with no explanation! People could swear they could see something in the corner of their eyes, moving too fast to see.” she crossed the room and took Silas by a hand and smiled at him “But he was so brave! He killed the ghost that was haunting us! It was truly remarkable!”

 

Agatha looked up at Silas, her eyes wide and frightened. “That’s why I need your help Silas!” Her voice got wavery and tears began to well up in her eyes “Please you’re the only one who can help me!” A tear striped down her cheek and she sniffed delicately, blotting the tear with a silk handkerchief “I-I don’t know who else to turn to!”

 

Silas looked pityingly down at her, nearly moved to tears himself at the sight of her. So pretty and so sad and in so much need of some proper help. He opened his mouth to speak and-

 

Cydia covered his mouth with a gloved hand “Excuse me. Do you mind if I speak with Silas for a moment alone?”

 

Agatha stepped back, blinking back tears. “Oh um…” She fiddled with her gloves “...Alright…” She spoke in the quiet nervous tones of someone that didn’t actually think it was alright but didn’t want to upset the company.

 

Cydia dragged a reluctant Silas out of the room and into the hallway. Cydia pushed Silas against a wall. “Now before you agree to anything just because a pretty woman asked you-”

 

Silas stood up straighter with an indignant look, he put a hand to his chest “I wasn’t going to-”

 

“That’s exactly what you were going to do.” Cydia hissed back.”Pretty girls lead silly boys down dark alleys.” She tapped a finger to his chest “Now before that happens, I want to make sure you know what you’re doing.”

 

Silas wavered before speaking, moving his head side to side in thought. “Well... in theory-”

 

“So you’ve never caught a ghost before.” Cydia gave him a flat look from under her veil. “Then what did-” She paused as realization washed over her “Wait a minute. Things broken every Wednesday morning.” She gasped, her mouth pinched with indignation “The so-called ghost you got rid of for her family was Mrs. Appleby!”

 

Silas grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Apparently a maid there has always fed Mrs. Appleby before... however when the maid died of pneumonia, nobody knew to leave out the eggs and toast.”

 

“Oh the brave ghost-killer!” Cydia threw up her hands mockingly “You didn’t even kill the thing! You just relocated it!”

 

Silas put his hands to his hips indignantly “I didn’t have to kill her! I found the maid’s diary that told me what to leave out for the hob to make it happy! If the occupants of the house had done just a bit of research, they could have lived with her without fear! I taught Mrs Appleby how to write notes to communicate her feelings without breaking things! If both sides just LEARNED a bit about each other then-”

 

Cydia sighed, rubbing her temples and groaning “So you’ve never caught, killed, or dealt with ghosts.”

 

Silas huffed and grimaced “No…” He straightened out again  “-but I know what needs to be done! Honestly why are you so-”

 

“Because I can’t punch a ghost for you Silas!” Cydia hissed. Honestly, this man had the self-preservation skills of a lemming. “This hound is much bigger and much more dangerous than a little old lady spirit that washes dishes in exchange for eggs! What if you-”

 

Silas smiled down at her, a hand cupping his cheek “Awww, you’re worried about me... “ He poked her nose and Cydia bared her teeth and took a half-hearted snap at his fingers.

 

“Maybe I am slightly worried.” Cydia conceded, her brows furrowed “But my fears are valid.”

 

Silas considered this for a moment. He sighed, his eyes steely with resolution “She needs our help, Cydia.”

 

Cydia groaned.

  
  


Silas, Cydia and Agatha sat in the drawing room. They were visited briefly by Mr.Stanbury. Mr.Stanbury was a tall man with a well groomed greying beard and white beginning to show on his temples. He wore a purple raw cut gem on a gold broach that cinched his necktie together. His suit was dark and finely tailored, golden cufflinks glinted at them as he adjusted his sleeves. All around, his fine dress, and the way he glared down his proud nose at Cydia and Silas, gave him the air of a disapproving school master who suspected tomfoolery among his students and highly disapproved. All he needed was a yardstick.

 

“I believe it needs to be said.” Thaddeus Stanbury addressed Silas, his baritone voice in a growl “That I believe that this is all poppycock.” Silas leaned away from him on the couch. Mr.Stanbury crossed over to his wife, smiled fondly down at her, and gave her a chaste peck on the cheek “However, I trust my wife and if she needs this to feel at ease then I will allow it.”

 

He glared down at Silas who shrunk under his gaze. “Though try and take advantage of her and...” He leaned down closer, inches away from Silas’s face as he glared daggers into the younger man “there would be no place on this good green Earth you could hide from me. I am a man of considerable resources and I would NOT hesitate to drag your sorry hide back to London to END you. Do we understand each other?”

 

Silas nodded, wide-eyed and terrified at the other man.

 

Thaddeus smiled, malicious like the glint of a knife. “Good.” He turned and began to glide out of the room. He looked over his shoulder at them “I will be retiring early tonight, forgive me if I don’t want to be involved in this drivel.” And with those final parting words he left the room.

 

Cydia muttered something rude about him under her breath. It rhymed with “Class-hole”

 

Agatha was quick to her husband’s defense “It’s been hard on him.” Agatha whispered, twirling a delicate teacup in her hands. “He won’t admit it, but he’s afraid as well. Afraid for me mostly.” She looked into her tea thoughtfully. “Even though he was in the carriage with me, he has summed up the experience as a brush in with a larger than usual dog.”

 

Silas looked at her, concern pinching his eyebrows together. “Do you love him? I would hope that-”

 

Agatha started, looking up at Silas for a moment before she smiled sadly into her teacup. “It was a good match. Better than what I thought I could hope for after-” She touched her locked again thoughtfully “After my last marriage ended so dreadfully.”

 

She brought the locket to her lips and kissed it gently. “He thinks that this experience is a result of nerves after the fire, that I should focus more on the family we will have together in the future rather than the one I have lost.”

 

Silas smiled at her, his eyes somber. He twiddled his thumbs. “Would you mind terribly if I asked-”

 

Agatha shook her head, tears once again shining in her eyes. “After we parted Silas, I married Bartholomew Bates, a banker in the city. He was a kind man, and we had a daughter together.” Agatha opened the locket around her neck and showed Silas a tiny photograph, Agatha, a heavily mustached man, and a little girl with blonde curly hair. A little curl of blonde hair joined the photograph. The tiny bundle of pale blonde hair was held together with a wisp of blue ribbon.

 

Agatha sniffed and a couple of tears rolled down her cheeks “She was only four years old when it happened.”

 

Silas took her hand gently to comfort her, and Agatha squeezed it gratefully.

 

The newfangled electric lights buzzed ominously above them. Silas’s brows furrowed. The lights flickered slightly and buzzed. When he let go of Agatha’s hand, rising to investigate further the buzzing and flickering stopped.

 

Cydia hummed thoughtfully, eyeing the lights suspiciously “In the papers. You said that the hound had killed them.”

 

Silas grimaced at Cydia “Honestly Cydia! Don’t you think it’s a bit rude to ask now of all t-”

 

Agatha waved away his concern “No I understand, you’re here to help and you’ll need to know all of it.” She straightened out her back and smoothed down her skirt, her eyes deep in remembrance. “It was raining that day and Bartholomew was too kind to force the dog we kept to stay out in the muck. The constables said that the best they could figure, the beast had knocked a gas lamp over in the library, setting the house on fire…”

 

Agatha shook her head, her eyes welling up with tears. “I awoke to my husband, panicked in his dressing robe. Smoke was everywhere, I couldn’t stop coughing. He ushered me out of the house. He went back to get our daughter. I tried to go back in after him, but the brass door handle was so hot it singed my hand, I couldn’t hold it. I tried to break the window but the fire brigade came and dragged me away.”

 

Agatha put a handkerchief to her mouth as she sobbed “He never came out. I lost both of them that night. My entire world lost in a puff of smoke...”

 

Agatha held the locket up to the light, the little silver heart spinning slightly on its chain. “This was just about the only thing that survived the fire. It was my daughter’s...given to her for her christening…”

 

“I was crushed. My home...my family…” She looked back at where Mr.Stanbury had left. “I met Thaddeus and he was so kind...He had also lost a wife a very long time ago...we bonded over our grief and he proposed. We married and came here.”

 

She ran a finger along the silver chain of the locket, looking somberly out of the long bay window.

 

“After that, wherever I went things would sometimes break suddenly. Frightening cries rang out at odd hours of the night. Oh and the howling! That infernal howling! The thing would howl outside our windows, tormenting us.” She shook her head, her hands curling into fists. “I think that this is the ghost is of the same beast. The dog that knocked over the lamp and doomed them. It took my family from me and now it wants to finish the job.”

 

“Please…” She looked up at the both of them. “Kill it.”

 

Cydia smiled. Her talons flexed hidden beneath her gloves “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

  
  


The evening was spent blessing the house. In accordance to the instructions in the black gilded book, Silas went from room to room with a paint brush and a little bottle of olive oil, anointing each doorway and window with a drop on each corner. The porter helped him with the ladder, the young man watching him curiously. A bundle of sage was procured from the kitchen and on Silas’ instruction, Cydia lit the bundle and went from room to room, filling the halls with the smell of the burning herbs. After anointing the doorways and windows with oil, Silas went about with a little bottle of holy water, dousing strategic points and mumbling incantations from the book on exercising ghosts and demons. A canister of salt was opened and the porter was sent out to make a wide ring around the manor with it.

 

Night fell over the manor, moonlight cast long shadows into the house, grey and reaching tendrils across the marble. The intricate moulding that seemed so gaudy during the day now formed odd dark shapes, like smoke that wound it’s way across the ceiling. A candelabra was lit and a servant, the same porter that they had met that morning, lit a fire in the fireplace before being dismissed by Agatha and retiring for the night.

 

Agatha sat on the drawing room couch, the fire cast a warm glow across the room and across her face, long shadows cut across her as she stared intently into the fire. She fiddled with the locket around her neck absentmindedly.

 

She raised a teacup with a trembling hand. Her eyes shone gold, reflecting the blaze. “Maybe it would be best to forget.” She murmured.

 

A shriek sounded through the manor, like nails raking across a massive chalkboard. The occupants of the room put their hands to their ears, groaning as they could practically feel the sound in their fingertips. Agatha’s teacup shattered and the paintings on the wall quivered before shaking violently, slamming against the walls violently. 

 

A howl sounded outside of the house, low and crooning.

 

Agatha stood up, her hands to her chest and tears streaking down her face in panicked sobs “Stop it!” She yelled, stepping back shakily with fear “Leave me alone!” She collapsed to the couch, shivering and clutching the locket “Please leave me be!”

 

Silas went to her side, Agatha put her face in her hands and wept. He turned back towards Cydia “Keep her safe. I’m going out there.”

 

Cydia gaped at him “You can’t be serious! What are you even going to do?”

 

Silas reached into his bag, past this morning’s sock puppet that jingled as he moved it, to a couple of identical colored vials “A splash of holy water to the face should do the trick.”

 

He turned to leave and Cydia caught him by an arm. Cydia gave him a serious look “I hope you know that this is horrendously stupid.” she hissed quietly. 

 

Silas grinned at her “If this is your way of expressing your concern for me, thank you, though you said it yourself- you can’t punch a ghost.” He shrugged “Not only that but you can’t exactly handle holy water safely…”

 

Cydia sighed, ceding the point. She nodded at him. She pointed a finger at him. “Stay safe. Throw them from a distance, stay inside the salt ring.” She tapped the finger to his chest “I mean it Silas.”

 

Silas nodded and Cydia released his arm. Agatha looked curiously between the two of them. Silas adjusted the strap on his bag and trotted across the main hall to the front doors of the mansion. Silas left the manor, throwing open the doors with a slam and disappearing into the night.

 

“Oh this is dreadful!” Agatha cried out, her arms tucked close to her body and looking fearfully in every which way “We’re left defenseless!”

 

Cydia took a poker from the fireplace, testing it’s heft and swing in her hands before passing another one to Agatha. Agatha stepped back from it uncertainly, staring at the metal rod as if it was snake being offered to her.

 

“Well go on.” Cydia waved the poker at her “Take it you silly thing.”

 

Agatha hesitantly took the poker from Cydia, her arms stock straight as she held it and her eyes so wide that it would be comical if their lives weren’t in danger.

 

Cydia kicked at the other woman’s feet “Widen your stance and loosen your arms.” She instructed, forming the position herself for Agatha to mimic.

 

Agatha did as she was told, widening her feet and bringing the poker closer to her. She looked at Cydia uncertainly.

 

Cydia spun her own poker deftly before swinging hard at a vase on the mantlepiece, hitting it so hard she sent it across the room where it shattered against a wall. “There. Not particularly the best weapon, but it will have to do for the evening.”

 

Agatha frowned at the porcelain shatters “That was a Ming vase you know.” She protested quietly.

 

Cydia rolled her eyes under the veil “Come on now! Swing at something!”

 

Agatha bit her lip and eyed all the expensive trinkets on the mantlepiece. She spotted an ugly pea-green glass decanter on a serving table by the couch, a little cross-eyed peacock head made the stopper. “Oh well.” She sighed, adjusting her grip on the poker and shrugging “Good riddance to bad rubbish I suppose...” She squinted at the ugly thing and swung with all her might, smashing the decanter with a splatter of expensive brandy.

 

Agatha breathed heavily, her pupils were pinpricks in her eyes and a lock of hair was coming loose from her pinned up hairdo. “This may sound terribly uncouth.” Agatha rested her poker against a shoulder with satisfaction. “But that was immensely gratifying.”

 

Cydia smiled and the two women shared a laugh.

 

Another shriek sounded through the home. Pictures shuddered and shook until they lifted from their hooks, floating through the room and circling the two women. The fire rose, spitting and and hissing like a feral cat. The floor shook as a scream howled around them. They readied their pokers.

 

“Are you ready?” Cydia asked Agatha, her lips curved in a wicked smile under her veil.

 

Agatha nodded, the fire reflecting in her eyes “Ready” 

 

They women stood back to back, their pokers raised.

 

A painting came towards them with an unearthly howl. Agatha raised her poker, hell in her steely eyes “Leave me alone!” She smashed the poker into the painting, cracking the frame and ripping through the canvas in one brutal hit.

 

More paintings veered towards them, howling and shrieking as they went. Cydia used her poker like a sword, slashing through their canvas fronts and sending them smashing to the ground.  

 

Agatha climbed onto the couch, swinging as she jumped from the back of it, slamming down onto a particularly large painting with a feral howl of her own. “I will not!” She screamed as she ruthlessly swung her poker “Be cowed!” She continued to smash the painting from where it was on the ground, shattering the wood “In my own home!”

 

Cydia smiled proudly at her.

  
  


Silas went out into the night. Greyish green fog surrounded the manor, blanketing and surrounding its victims in the claustrophobia inducing mist. It was as if the entirely of London had been blotted out and only the manor remained, alone and isolated.

 

A peacock laid on the grass, bloodied and lifeless, its feathers broken, half-chewed by some giant gruesome maw.

 

Silas stepped into the darkness further, still and quiet say for the sound of his quiet steps on the grass. It was so deathly silent that he could hear the sound of his own ragged breaths, the blood rushing through his veins, his heartbeat slamming in his chest. His glasses were fogging up and with trembling hands he quickly pulled out a handkerchief to wipe them.

 

A howl sounded in the distance, he whirled around and he could see two glowing spots in the fog, red and burning. His hands reached for his bag and-

 

“Lovely night we’re having.” A man in a black suit, a bowler hat and round spectacles remarked to Silas, pulling in a cigar leisurely, the lit end a bright red point in the darkness.

 

“Lovely night, lovely night.” A man next to him agreed, wearing an identical hat, suit and glasses, also smoking a cigar. Smoke curled out their noses like dragons as they smiled at Silas. 

 

The first man put his cigar back into his mouth. “Now young man. Where are you off to?” Silas could see his own reflection in their glasses, but not the man’s eyes beyond them.

 

“Chasing shadows no doubt.” Answered the other man, pointing his cigar at Silas decisively “Nasty business it is, killing what’s already dead.”

 

Smoke curled around the second man as he swirled his cigar dramatically in the air. His black suit was so inky that it looked as if someone had stamped a hole in the fog and through reality itself. “Now that’s just an oxymoron my friend, one can’t kill what’s already dead. For that matter it’s rather hard to  _ truly _ kill anything, in the real sense that is.”

 

“They just shift.” The other man elaborated, taking another drag of the cigar and letting the smoke pour from his mouth “Like smoke they shift, one form to the next, back again and so forth.”

 

Silas looked between the two of them “Look I don’t know who you are but there is something dangerous out here so-”

 

“He’s worried for us.” The men chuckled, their laugh perfectly in sync down to the way they clutched their bellies and how their shoulders shook “How quaint. How very quaint.”

 

“Things need to move. Need to shift and change.” The men said in unison.

 

“From one to to the other” Said one man.

 

“Like blood in the water.” Answered the other.

 

“Like lamb to the slaughter” Said the first.

 

“Blast and be bother.” they said together, pulling their cigars away, each cigar held in the opposite hand, like a mirror to each other.

 

Silas went to turn away from them, but as he turned he was face-to-face with one of the men who smiled and blew a puff of smoke at him, smiling as Silas reared back with a cough. “Change is so difficult though.” The man said wistfully. Silas turned again only for the other man to be directly behind him. 

 

“They cling to what they know.” The other man behind Silas whispered, bringing his cigar back to his mouth.”

 

“The ferryman helps them, but few wish to take the journey.” This close up Silas could see their blank white eyes behind their glasses. They exhaled and smoke wisped out from a slit on their neck.

 

“Such an arduous thing. My bags are hardly packed.” The other man’s eyes were similarly blank, smoke curled up from a musket shot through their chest.

 

Silas scrambled away from them and they chuckled at that, their suits dark as a moonless sky, void and bleeding into the dark. A howl sounded through the night, echoing through the streets.

 

“Run. Run. The dog catcher comes.” one of the men chuckled.

 

“A dog not a man.” The second one laughed, crooked teeth gleaming in the moonlight “And it’s the men that he catches”

 

With that both men turned black as soot, only the whites of their eyes and the lit ends of their cigars remaining. They crumbled like ash and blew away in the wind.

 

A growl sounded through the night,then an echoing howl. Blue flaming eyes cut through the darkness. Silas hadn’t even noticed that he had crossed the salt ring, how did he get so far from the house?

 

The beast stepped forward, the thing was as large as a small horse, eye-level with Silas as it stalked forward. It opened it’s maw and green mist dripped down its jaw, pooling onto the ground below. The beast was as black as night, but as it walked Silas could see some of the ground through it, it’s legs beginning opaque and turning more and more transparent until they reached the paw. It walked a few inches above the ground, slightly off kilter from the rules of reality and gravity. Flaming pawprints appeared where its feet should have landed but didn’t, burning with hot blue flame before subsiding into soot. The creature eyed him, growling from deep in their chest.

 

Silas stood stock still, frozen as he faced the creature. His heart was pounding in his ears, his hands were shaking, his breath was ragged he reached into his bag, yelling as he threw-

 

Yelling as he threw the sock puppet and not the vial of holy water. The little cloth thing jingled as it went.

 

Oh dear lord.

 

He’s dead.

 

The creature stopping it’s growling, pricking up its ears as the little sock puppet fluttered and jingled past it. The sock puppet landed a bit away from them with a thump in the grass.

 

The scene was silent for a moment. 

 

The dog’s entire demeanor changed, seemingly remembering that it was, in fact, a dog and not just a terrifying aberration of science, sanity and the natural realm. It panted, lolling out a sooty black tongue and went bounding after the puppet. It picked up the thing in it’s teeth and shook it gleefully as a puppy would, the little vampire sock puppet jingling as it was shaken. It trotted back to Silas, chewing the little beleaguered sock puppet happily.

 

Silas put his hands to his hips, absolutely bewildered. “Hey you. Leave The Count alone.”

 

The beast sat by Silas and cocked it’s head, it’s blue flaming eyes wide. Even sitting down the dog hovered a few inches in the air. It shook the sock puppet which squeaked and jingled.

 

Silas sighed and extended a demanding hand. “Give it.” He demanded.

 

The beast’s ears went back, their blue pupil-less eyes wide. It looked at Silas guiltily.

 

Silas raised his eyebrows in warning and more forcefully extended his hand. “Come on now.”

 

The hound dropped the slimey vampire sock puppet into Silas’ outstretched hand, dripping with luminescent saliva. He dried it with his handkerchief and dropped back into his bag. “Well, that’s disgusting.”

 

The hound came forward and nosed his muzzle under Silas’ hand. The fur was an odd texture, grainy like soot and crackling with an odd sort of energy, like the feeling in the air before a thunderstorm. Silas obligingly pet the beast, reaching up to run a hand across his ear. The dog panted and extended a black sooty tongue to lick across his face.

 

Silas yelped as the black tongue knocked his glasses askew. He laughed and continued to pet the monster who closed it’s eyes blissfully and groaned. “What a good dog you are..” Silas whispered “You don’t seem like a vengeful shuck…”

 

Silas stiffened, realization crossing his face “If you aren’t a shuck that means-”

  
  


Agatha and Cydia continued to fight off the paintings and other brick-a-brack that floated around them, slashing them with their pokers as the objects flew at them, pushed by unseen ghostly forces. Agatha’s dress was ripped, her hair coming loose from her hairdo and a feral look in her eyes. A tea pot flew towards her and Agatha screamed, vicious and excited, shattering the little porcelain thing with wicked smile.

 

Cydia was behind her, she picked up an armchair and threw it at threw it through a painting that rushed at them, tearing through the canvas, shattering the frame. The chair fell to the floor in a shattered heap. 

 

“Sorry about that Dear.” Cydia addressed Agatha with a bit of a shrug “That seemed like an expensive item, I suppose I got a bit carried away.”

 

Agatha wiped a scratch across her cheek, blood staining her silk glove. “Pay it no mind, the upholstery was ghastly anyways.”

 

Silas yelled from outside the house “Cydia!”

 

Cydia threw open a window, dodging a teakettle that went rocketing out of the window and into the garden, whistling as it went “Silas! Are you alright?”

 

Silas was walking towards the house, he walked backwards, keeping an eye on the dog, his arms up like a lion-tamer in a cage. “Let us through!”

 

Cydia gasped “Silas! What are you doing?” She ducked and a clock surrounded with ghostly energy flew out the window before shattering with a twang. “Get away from that thing!”

 

“Trust me!” Silas continued to lead the monster towards the house. He gave her a look and nodded “I know what I’m doing!”

 

Cydia growled and closed the window.

 

“What was that?” Agatha asked mildly, fencing with a pair of knitting needles that floated about trying to stab her.

 

“Silas has a new plan, we’re letting it in.” Cydia answered, running to the door.

 

“What?” Agatha asked incredulously, parrying against the needles “Is he mad?”

 

“Probably.” Cydia stalked down the main hall and flung open the main doors. “Though I’m inclined to trust him.”

 

Silas walked the great hound closer to the manor, keeping his eyes on the beast. “Clear a path in the salt.” He asked quietly.

 

Cydia rushed down the stairs and swept away a section of salt with the hem of her dress. A shudder went through the area, a supernatural seal broken, the hound sensed it and its ears perked up, it shook its head eagerly. The beast howled, low and crooning, loud enough to shake the windows in their settings.

 

Inside the house, Agatha was about so swing at a teacup that was buzzing around her before all the floating items in the drawing room paused, the blue crackling energy around them fading and the now non-haunted items falling to the ground. The fire in the fireplace that had been raging and spitting was immediately extinguished along with every candle and electric light in the house. The manor was suddenly plunged into a still unnatural quiet, as time itself had suddenly stopped.

 

The hound walked slowly up the front entry to the manor, up the stairs and into the grand hallway the beast graceful and silent, mist whipping around them and their eyes glowing brightly. Sooty pawprints followed the creature as it walked on air, stark against the pale marble, ethereal, and otherworldly. 

 

Agatha watched it uncertainly as it approached her, quiet and with an unreadable expression in its luminous eyes. Her hands clenched at her sides, still holding the poker but making no move to attack. Her eyes were wild under the hair that had come loose from her pinned bun. Her dressed was stained and ripped. She was breathing heavily, the locket gleaming like a broken shard of moonlight around her neck.

 

The dog looked intently at her, their blue eyes shining. Agatha stayed still as it came closer, shaking and breathing hard. She swallowed nervously. She didn’t dare look away, didn’t dare move.

 

The hound was close enough that she could feel its breath on her neck. Their breath was luke-warm, smelling like moss and rain.

 

It looked at her solemnly, bowing its head to her as if in professional greeting. It closed its eyes and touched its snout to the locket on her neck. With the touch of the ghostly dog a sudden charge could be felt through the area, a release of energy, a shockwave, like a rubber band snapping, like popping a balloon with a pin.

 

Blue sparks of energy surrounded the locket, crackling and glowing brightly until-

 

There was a huge unearthly howl but it was growing quieter and quieter until-

 

A tiny little sob could be heard in the room, echoing through the grand manor. A little girl stood between Agatha and the hound, clutching at Agatha’s skirts with tiny death-pale fingers. Her skin glowed pale blue, her dress and her hair as white as snow. She sobbed as she pressed her chubby little face into the fabric of Agatha’s skirt.

 

“Mummy you forgot me.” The little girl cried and hiccupped, blue luminescent tears rolling down her cheeks. Her voice was oddly strained, disjointed, something that could be felt in the minds of the people there more than it was actually heard “Mummy you forgot me.”

 

Agatha her hands to her mouth and her eyes welled up with tears. Her hands hovered above the child as if she couldn’t tell if the child was real or not “Esther? Oh my god Ester!” Agatha knelt down, looking over at the tiny child. 

 

Esther’s hair waved above her in little snow-white curls, her dress hung around her as if the child was floating in water. Her eyes were wide and blank, glowing tears striping down her chubby sheeks and dripping onto the floor. 

 

Agatha smiled at her, touching one of the ghost’s delicate floating curls and tucking it behind her head. She leaned forward and hugged the little girl, bringing her daughter to her chest “I thought I would never see you again!” She could see her own hands through the child, their skin deathly cold and buzzing with energy.

 

She brought up her daughter’s face to look her in the eyes, finding a connection there despite the fact that her daughter no longer had pupils “I never forgot you.” Agatha sobbed, running her hand down her daughter’s hair. A sad watery smile tugged at her lips “Never.”

 

Ester pulled away from her mother suddenly, her little brows furrowed. Her hair and the many ribbons on her little dress flowed forcefully, crackling like blue fire. She stamped a tiny little foot against the marble floor, sparks of white-blue energy flowed through the lines in the tile like shocks of electricity, sparking and streaming into some surviving paintings and chotchkies, making them buzz and shake violently with her energy. “YOU MOVED AWAY!” Ester screamed, her eyes glowing brighter “MARRIED AGAIN!”

 

Glowing blue tears streamed down Ester’s face and the buzzing in the room slowly quieted down. “You’re happier without me...aren’t you?” the little girl sobbed, her tiny chubby hands curling into fists. 

 

“AREN’T YOU?!” Esther screamed and in that moment the fireplace blazed high and crackled with blue fire. The scattered items around them jumped, some of them cracking and splintering apart. A window shattered, the wind pulling the curtain through the hole.

 

Afterwards the fire and Esther’s rage fizzled out into nothing but soot. The little girl stood before her mother pale and without the energy that had accompanied her before. In the darkness without the fire she was a monotone grey, her hair hanging in tangles around her face.

 

Agatha shook her head “Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!” She put her hands on either side of Esther’s face, cupping her cheeks and wiping away a tear with a thumb. “I think about you every day!” She leaned in, sighed, and pressed her forehead against her daughter’s “You made me and your father so happy. I am so lucky to have been your mother…” 

 

Esther hiccupped and smiled, color slowly draining back into her grey form. She reached up one chubby hand to scrub at the tears that continued to drip down her face. She hugged her mother back and sighed. “I love you mommy.” 

 

Something shivered in the air around them. The oppressiveness of the home seemed to lessen, the dark no longer malicious. The fog dissipated from around the manor. It was like opening a window, a breath of fresh air into what you hadn’t even noticed was stale and dirty air, your senses awakening with it.

 

Agatha held her daughter close, pressing a kiss to her curly hair and rocking both of them back and forth.

 

The hound touched it’s muzzle in between their faces. It’s nose was cold against their cheeks. It looked sadly at the both of them.

 

Esther sniffed, rubbing her face. She turned towards the beast. “Ok puppy.” She acquiesced and tottered over to the dog, her bare feet sounding against the tile and her nightgown flowing like mist.

 

Agatha blinked, watching her daughter leave incredulously “Wait no! Don’t leave!” Agatha reached towards her daughter but this time her hand fell through the ghost’s shoulder uselessly.

 

Esther looked back at her. The little girl’s eyes were wide but no longer the pupiless white they had been. Sky-blue color slowly began to fill in the little ghost’s irises, like smoke in a glass jar. She smiled, color returning to her cheeks. “It’s ok mommy. I think I’m ready to go.” The little girl was bathed in a warm light, radiating out from her very skin.

 

Silas put a hand to Agatha’s shoulder. “It’s ok Aggie….The hound isn’t a shuck. It’s a church grim.”

 

Agatha looked back at Silas, tear tracks across her face, her brows furrowed “A what?”

 

Silas looked at the hound and the little ghost girl. The great black dog laid on its belly and let the little spirit climb onto his back. The little girl was so bright against the dark fur of the church grim, like the moon against the night sky.

 

“A church grim.” Silas watched as the dog turned its head to nuzzle the little girl protectively. Esther giggling as she was tickled by the creature’s coarse fur.”Whoever is buried first in a cemetery, their spirit stays behind as a ferryman or a reaper. Forever tasked with protecting their graveyards, collecting souls and helping them pass on. To keep a loved one from the eternal task, many churches buried dogs first, making church grims.”

 

The dog looked at Agatha sadly. It trotted over to her, pressing their head to the woman who wrapped her arms around its great neck. The dog pressed its face against her’s, as if it was apologizing. Agatha sniffed and petted them across their snout.

 

“Thank you.” She whispered as she pressed her face against the dog’s. She put her hands on the dog’s ears and kissed the church grim between the eyes. The dog licked her face gently, bidding her farewell. Esther leaned forward where she was seated on the dog’s back to put her hands over her mother’s, her little hands now glowing with bright warm light. Agatha smiled at the both of them.

 

The hound snuffled at Agatha and she couldn’t help but giggle, tears still welling in her eyes. The hound turned away and began to trot down the hall.

 

“Bye momma!” Esther called as the dog bounded away, waving a little hand from where she sat on top of the massive grim. “I’ll see you in the other place!”

 

The dog ran out the hall and into the night, disappearing with a puff of green mist, Ester’s smile was the last thing they saw.

 

Agatha waved goodbye to her daughter, smiling, her hair in a tangled mess, her dress torn, tears striping down her face and the room around them in shambles. She sniffed and wiped her face. Cydia put a hand to her shoulder and Agatha looked back at her with a smile.

 

“Thank you both.” Agatha laughed as happy tears dripped down her face.

 

“It was our pleasure.” Silas smiled and handed the lady her handkerchief who accepted it gratefully and with a giggle.

  
  


Dawn broke over the manor wall, streaking hazily through the windows and setting the scene aglow in morning light. The three of them watched the sunrise together, calm and serene after the chaos that had unfolded that night.

 

Thaddeus Stanbury was, quite understandably, upset when he arose that morning in his slippers and dressing robe to find the drawing room in such shambles that it looked as if a tornado had blown through his home. The porter sighed and meekly went to find a broom as Mr.Stanbury seethed.

 

Mr. Stanbury was bristling with rage, his fists clenched, tearing the morning’s newspaper in his hands in two with one clean motion, little scraps of paper fluttering to his feet. He looked as if he was about to take a poker from the fireplace himself to gouge out Silas’ eyes. Silas backed away from him, sensing doom. Cydia stepped in front of the human and gave him nasty glare from under her veiled hat, her talons flexing inside of her gloves.

 

That was however, until Agatha jumped into her husband’s arms ecstatically, her hair in a mess and her dress ruined but undeniably happier than he had seen her in months. She giggled and kissed the bewildered man across the cheeks over and over again, hugging him tightly and practically hanging from his neck.

 

Thaddeus Stanbury obligingly wrapped his arms around his wife, supporting her weight as she just about draped herself over him like a dishtowel. His anger slowly melted away when faced with an armful of gleeful wife. 

 

He took a good look at her, studying the ripped dress, the messy hair, the tear tracks across her cheeks and the smile she wore that could rival the sun. He ran a thumb across a scratch on his wife’s cheek. “My dear Agatha.” He murmured, concern pinching his brow. “What in the heavens have they done to you?”

 

Agatha smiled back at him, giggling and pressing more kisses across the bridge of his nose. “Nothing my dear! We faced a great many trials together but we have come out the better for it!” She kissed his cheek “I’m so happy! So positively at ease! I have been scrubbed clean! I feel like new woman!”

 

Thaddeus threw a confused look over his wife’s shoulders. He glared at Silas at Cydia like a man who didn’t know whether to be grateful or furious. Which he in fact, was. Silas smiled and waved. Thaddeus scoffed and glowered at him.

 

“Dear.” Mr. Stanbury addressed his wife, pulling back to look into her brown eyes that had gone kitten-soft with radiant joy “Would you please help the porter? I doubt the boy knows what can and can’t be salvaged. I’ll escort our guests out.”

 

Agatha smiled at him “Very well!” she climbed off her husband, a little skip in her step as she brushed off her tattered dress, fixed her ruined hair and happily skipped off to where the porter and another servant were miserably picking through the rubble. A maid swept up the massive sooty pawprints that tracked across the floor.

 

Thaddeus Stanbury led them to the door quietly. There was a thoughtful look on his face, his hands clasped behind his back and the newspaper he had torn in half tucked neatly under one arm. Silas and Cydia went out the front door, Mr. stanbury following them out and closing the door behind him. He glared down at them.

 

“I don’t know what you did.” He growled, his eyes shining darkly “And I don’t care.” He looked back in the house to make sure his wife was still busy. Agatha was currently gleefully ordering about the servants, pointing emphatically at things to be either saved or thrown away 

 

Mr. Stanbury sighed “The only reason you’re not being currently sued, is that she’s happy.” He looked down at them, his teeth bared in an angry grimace “But if you ever step foot on my property again, I will shoot you myself. Do you understand?”

 

Silas smiled, clicking his heels together and saluting the other man “Yes indeed!”

 

Thaddeus growled at him before slamming the door on their faces.

 

Silas turned to Cydia, smiling as they walked down the steps of the grand manor. “All in all-” He remarked, kicking his feet up as he bounded down the stairs. “I would say that this would be a successful first venture into the realm of spirits!”

 

Cydia laughed “I’m proud of our dear Agatha. You should have seen how she fought!”

 

Silas laughed and offered his arm, Cydia took it and the tired and slightly scratched pair walked arm in arm. The sunrise was beginning to peek over the garden wall, a pack of peacocks lazily strolling through the rose garden, shards of glass from the many smashed windows glittering through the yard like diamonds in the light of the new day. Silas sighed and looked out into the new dawn “I’m happy for her.”

  
  


Thaddeus Stanbury watched the pair leave from his study on the second floor, the velvet curtains parted on either side of him. The shadows on the other side of his study deepened and bubbled like ink. Two shapes rose up from the blackness, rising up from the inky black like a pair of monoliths, their forms slowly clarifying.

 

Two men stood up from the shadows, both dressed in matching black suits, bowler hats and spectacles. They both took a drag of their cigar, their actions mirrored and perfectly in sync. Black smoke streamed from their mouths like shadows.

 

Mr. Stanbury didn’t even look back at them, his eyes intent on the carefree pair leaving his home and walking down the street to catch a cab. “Keep an eye on those two.” He ordered.

 

Both ghosts smiled, exhaling deeply and disappearing with a puff of smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy neighbor! Please comment your reactions below! I absolutely love hearing from people and I'm using ao3 as a sort of lab before trying to write an actual book so please tell me absolutely EVERYTHING!
> 
> Don't hold back!


	3. The case of the jade spider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cydia and Silas are on the case when a body is dredged up from the River Thames. Our duo suspects the work of a non-human killer and are sent on a whirlwind through the city slums.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thank you for checking this out! I'm working on this original work for Nanorimo and I would absolutely LOVE any and all feedback you have! Chapter two has also been re-worked a bit based on your previous suggestions.

The home of Silas Fletcher was deceptively understated. A wrought iron fence wrapped around an overgrown english garden. Symbols scratched into the metal so subtle that those who passed never saw the intricate signs, protecting those inside from the horrors of the outside world. The garden was somehow more alive than it had any right to be, flowers bloomed early and stayed weeks after the plants in the neighboring yards had wilted.

 

Passerbys would sometimes pause there, thinking perhaps that they had seen something move in the lush foliage, maybe they had heard the dry flutter of wings, or perhaps maybe even...a small giggle from something just beyond their vision…

 

The people of London were sensible though, and knew that fairies and fey did not exist. So they would chalk it up to their imaginations, or perhaps the wind. They would sigh and shake their heads, chastising themselves for such silly notions and walk on down the street. Tiny fingers would part the leaves, the residents inside watching them as they left.

 

The house itself was covered with honeysuckle, clinging to the brick and sending shoots of orange flowers in every direction that scented the air with heady dreamy perfume. The house peered over the garden like a fat hen over a nest, it’s stained glass windows glimmering like the spectacles of a kindly grandmother, knitting peacefully as she watched her grandchildren play.

 

Inside the house a human tried desperately to placate a deadly creature.

Silas held the dress in front of him, a hopeful smile on his face. The dress was stiff with propriety, a dark grey no-nonsense petticoat, a white apron and a cotton bonnet. All around it seemed to be the perfect garment to wear while yelling at unruly children with a yardstick in hand, or looking down your nose at a beggar as you came home from church. Something to wear about town to convince the neighbors that you were moral, tight-laced, and definitely not having an extramarital affair with the handsome neighbor.

 

Cydia’s black eyes flickered over the garment, her arms were crossed in front of her, the talons of her hands tapping impatiently on her upper arms, there was a sneer on her lips. She looked at the gown as if Silas had pulled in a pile of wet dead leaves from the yard and asked her to wear it. Actually, the leaves would have had a better effect.

 

“No.” Cydia turned away from Silas and the gown dismissively.

 

Silas dropped the gown and gave Cydia a flat look from over the tops of his glasses “Cydia, really it’s for the best!”

 

Cydia turned back to him angrily, her brows furrowed and her sharp teeth peeking from her lips with a snarl. “Really? It’s for the best that I dress up like your MAID?”

 

Silas raised a finger “Governess.” He corrected a tad haughtily, his brows raised and his glasses at the tip of his nose. He looked like a school teacher correcting a child’s spelling in class. “It’s a bit more dignified”

 

Cydia hissed, she grabbed a book from one of the many overflowing desks in the study, pulling back and aiming the published projectile. She threw the book at him with a growling chitter, the leather-bound compendium bouncing off Silas’s head and landing on the floor in a graceful  flutter of paper. “You!” Cydia growled and pointed at him accusingly, her moth-like wings twitching agitatedly behind her “Have NO children! Why in the heavens would you have a governess?”

 

Silas rubbed his head and sighed. He leaned down to pick up the book, closing it and dusting off the cover. “To manage the household of course. A man does not engage in such trivialities.”

 

Cydia growled again, her claws fully extending where she had her hands clenched around her upper arms. Silas silently moved a stack of books behind him so they were beyond the range of her rage.

 

Cydia squinted at him, throwing up her taloned hands incredulously “I have SEEN you cook! I have seen you sew! Just the other day I witnessed you sit in the parlor with an embroidery hoop! Stitching tiny blue flowers onto a tea cloth.”

 

Silas put his hands on his hips, giving Cydia a glare to distract from the fact that he was blushing “This is not the time to discuss what I may or may not embroider in my spare time! I wouldn’t actually make y-”

 

“-and you hummed and sang as you went.” She interrupted, shaking her head mockingly “Henry laying at your feet. Why you were the image of a perfect wife. Albeit of course that you are a man, not a woman, and Henry is not a dog, but a horrible abomination of nature.”

 

The horrible abomination of nature looked up from their spot of the rug to watch the tiff lazily, their large and bulbous goat-like eyes sparking with curiosity. A large tongue escaped their mouth, past blunt human-like teeth and boar’s tusks, to swipe across their eyeballs.

 

Silas rolled his eyes “Why are you so against this? I’m not actually going to make you work as a maid!” He looked away and coughed awkwardly into his fist “I mean a governess...All we would be doing is to make you LOOK like a servant. Blend in a bit!”

 

Cydia rolled her eyes “And what is so awful about the way I look now?”

 

Silas’s mouth was pinched. “Cydia… You wear only a few layers of petticoats, you never wear a corset, you wear dresses with bared shoulders and bosoms…”

 

Cydia raised an eyebrow “And?”

 

Silas huffed, looking away embarrassed “My neighbors all assume that you are a prostitute.” He admitted in a small voice, his words cracking a bit at the end.

 

Cydia didn’t quite react to that the way Silas imagined she would. She only shrugged and moved her hand to prompt him further “And?”

 

Silas stepped back, his brows furrowed and his mouth open “And that doesn’t BOTHER you?”

 

Cydia rolled her eyes, or at least Silas thought she did, it was a bit difficult to tell since her eyes were pupiless, solid, reflective black. “Why on Earth would I care what the humans living next to you think? I BARELY care what YOU think as it is!”

 

Silas’s mouth was pinched in a tight line. He decided to ignore the last part of her statement. “There’s propriety Cydia.” He groused, gesturing forcefully in front of him “Morals and-”

 

“Oh morals! Oh propriety!” Cydia mocked him in a nasally tone, making theatric “dainty” hand gestures in the air “Oh my! A bunch of humans made rules about how much fabric I should have around my arse! They disapprove of me! Whatever will I do? Woe is me!”

 

Silas sighed “Well you should care about your reputation! Being of the wrong sort can close a lot of doors in this city.”

 

“When doors close, you open them back up again.” Cydia gave him a flat look “That’s what doors do.” She smiled, clicking her talons together “And if they refuse to budge, try again!” Her smile turned wicked and one of her hands clenched into a fist “Kick the door down! Tear the wood to shreds and when you finally get inside and find the WELP who DARED to try and lock a door on you then-”

 

Silas threw the dress to the floor. The dress was so stiff with starch that it practically stood by itself, watching Cydia and Silas like a crumpled grey ghost between them “Honestly? You’re ridiculous! It’s just a dress!”

 

Cydia sniffed “It’s stiff! I doubt I could fight in it! What do human women need all this space under their dressed for anyways? An armory of guns? Entire bows and arrows? All neatly organized under their petticoats?”

 

Silas groaned “It’s the principle of it! You being…” He motioned vaguely at Cydia as he tried to find his words. Today she only wore what was supposed to be an outer petticoat for a dress, the ties lopsided around her middle and the fabric hanging loosely around her legs. You could see her ankles. She looked at him impatiently. “...The way you are.” He chose finally “It reflects poorly on me as well you know.”

 

“Oh really.” Cydia smiled sweetly, her taloned hands folding together demurely “It reflects poorly on you?”

 

Silas nodded, his hands still on his hips, his nose in the air “Yes.”

 

Cydia smiled wider, her sharp teeth giving her amused smile a predatory glint “The disgraced professor? The one who was thrown out of the scientific community for claiming that fairies existed? The one who tried to create a class on paranormal happenings, leading flocks of hapless students through abandoned mines and haunted houses? The one who insisted that mermaids were in the river Thames and tried to-”

 

Silas put up a hand to stop her, a pained look on his face “Alright, point taken.”

 

“Really?” Cydia mused, twirling a lock of hair innocently in one talon “Is the point really taken? Because you know I COULD continue…”

 

Silas put his head in his hands and rubbed his temples “Yes Cydia. The point has been, very much so, taken.”

 

“-the one who wasted grant money wandering about in the wilds of America looking for the elusive sasquatch? The one who was seen by a nobleman’s wife talking to a tree? Oh yes you’re right. His biggest concern should absolutely be being seen with a woman who may or may not be a prostitute. It’s not as if just about every other man in the city already does that.” She leaned in, a grin on her face and her wings fluttering behind her “Or would you rather they know what I really am?”

 

Silas let his head rest in his hands and gave Cydia a look “First of all that tree was a skogsra that had gotten lost in the city. She was very nice and was just trying to get back to the country. She complemented my embroidery. At least she had good taste!” He leaned back, looking over at Cydia over the rims of his spectacles “And you know very well that people knowing what you are is FAR more dangerous for you than it is for me.”

 

Cydia considered this for a moment,her smile falling and her eyes going hard “You could make them believe you.” Her voice was low. A grating whisper. “Pin me up and present me to the scientific community.”

 

Silas rolled his eyes and sighed. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you.” he sighed and closed his eyes resolutely. “I have accepted that perhaps people are not quite ready to know their neighbors yet, not completely. We have to make it gradual, have both sides learn about each other and how to coexist.”

 

Silas picked up the dress, the fabric audibly crunching under his hands from the layers of starch in the fabric. “Which is why it really is for the best to not draw too much attention...even if that means doing something you don’t like…” He sighed.

 

Cydia hummed, turning her head away from him, not wanting to think about what would happen if she was discovered again. The last thing she ever wanted was to go back to where Silas had found her. “I still think the human notion of propriety is rubbish. The sooner your species realizes that we are all disgusting, stinking, animals crawling through the dirt, the better.”

 

Silas rolled his eyes, pushing up his spectacles. He walked past Cydia and to the kitchen. The hardwood under their feet changing to checkered tiles. It smelled like buttered toast and honeysuckle, the window slightly ajar and little shoots of orange flowers trailing in from where they grew on the brick outside. The kitchen showed the advantages of having a wealthy family like Silas’s, being equipped with all of the futuristic gadgets and accouterments like an icebox and an electric tea kettle.

 

“You are entirely too cynical.” He smiled and waved a hand dreamily in the air as he nearly danced into the kitchen “They may not be ready yet but they will be! Together we can usher in a new age of cooperation and reason!”

 

Cydia snorted as she followed him into the kitchen. Watching Silas spin slowly across the hardwood as if dancing with an invisible partner.

 

“What a piece of work is man! How noble in his capacity to reason!” Silas crossed into the kitchen, humming and dancing. A gangly and bespectacled danseur.

 

Silas pulled out a chair for Cydia at the kitchen table, the creature sitting down with an amused look “How unlimited in his thinking!” Silas continued, his long hands moving in dramatic sweeps through the air “How admirable in his shape and movement! How angelic in action, how god-like in understanding!” He set a plate of eggs and toast in front of her with a dramatic flourish, bowing to Cydia like a waiter at a posh restaurant.

 

Cydia couldn’t help but huff out a laugh, picking up her fork gently.

 

“Now I know, I know.” Silas smiled as he sat down across from her, setting a plate in front of himself “You would say the words of Shakespeare are only the self-flagellation of humans, written by humans and for the benefit of humans.” He raised a glass to take a sip of water.

 

Cydia smiled, cocking her head “You think Shakespeare was a human? Funny.” She mused in mock innocence, spinning her fork between her fingers.

 

Silas spit out his water, he looked up at her, his green eyes wide and water still dribbling down his chin “Are you serious?”

 

Cydia took a bite of her eggs, ignoring his question completely “Oh these are actually quite good! Did you add a splash of milk to it? Nice touch.”

 

Silas leaned across the table his eyes wide and desperate as Cydia leaned back completely nonplussed “Cydia you can’t just tell me things and not-”

 

There was a sudden THWIP as something moving just beyond the corners of their visions streaked through the kitchen, depositing something on the table.

 

“Oh look.” Cydia picked up the paper “Mrs.Appleby brought us the post.”

 

Silas was practically bent over the table, looking up at his inhuman companion imploringly as she placidly perused the morning newspaper. “Please Cydia! You have to tell me if Shakespeare was-”

 

Cydia let the newspaper drop, flopping over her human’s dark curly hair. “There’s no time for that I’m afraid.” Cydia sighed “Look at the section on recent deaths.”

 

Silas shook his head, letting the paper fall from his head and into his hands. There was a photograph of a woman who had washed up on the side of The Thames, her hair spread around her like a halo on the rocky beach. A couple of policemen stood on either side of her, their mustaches bristling and their hands to their hips like disapproving fathers.

 

Silas hummed as he scanned the article. “It says here that she had drowned...a sad business...Do you think she was a case of self-murder?”

 

Cydia shook her head, her antennae twitching behind her “Keep reading.”

 

Silas shrugged “Mrs. Adelia Dodson, a woman of respectable standing, the wife of textile manufacturer Declan Dobson, appeared at the edge of the Thames, recently drowned after being missing for...for three weeks?”

 

Cydia nodded “Something had her Silas.” She pointed a clawed hand to the back and white photograph in front of them “Something had her for a very long time.” she tapped her talon against the image, highlighting a band across the woman’s wrist. “I don’t think this is  a bracelet or a cuff, I suspect something much more…”

 

Silas got up from the table suddenly. He rushed into his study and pulled an apparatus up from over an odd specimen that had been pinned there, the partially dissected thing looked like a ball of soot and oil that had grown for too many eyes . He returned to the kitchen table, glass and bronze apparatus in hand. He centered the paper underneath the tool, pushing his glasses up to peer through. He adjusted the lenses delicately.

 

He pulled away, his brows furrowed, a somber but calculating look on his face “You’re right.” He said quietly “Ligature marks.”

 

Cydia looked up at him. “I have a very bad feeling about this one Silas.” She murmured

 

The woman stared up at them from the photograph, her hair wet and tangled, her dainty fists clenched “A very bad feeling indeed.”

 

Silas once again insisted that Cydia be a bit more dressed before they left. He pulled a dark morning gown from a trunk in the attic.

 

“This will help.” He insisted.

 

Cydia sighed as she held the gown against her “You better have a reason for this.” She groused and relented only for expediency’s sake, grimacing as she put on the stiff and confining outfit.

 

Silas hailed them both a cab, pulled by a pair of chestnut horses who looked like they were in need of a brush. Silas helped Cydia into the compartment, following her in afterwards. Cydia sat next to Silas, her gloves hiding her taloned hands and her hat pulled far down on her head. “So.” She started conversationally, fidgeting with her gloves and hat “How do you want to do this?”

 

Silas hummed, reading through the paper, a pencil behind his ear. “How well is your spanish?” He asked.

 

“I can speak in all languages.” Cydia shrugged “Why?”

 

Silas looked up from the paper suddenly “Wait you can? How do you-”

 

Cydia raised a hand to stop him “It’s on account of what I am.” She shrugged apologetically “I can’t explain to you what I don’t know myself. We always just...could?”

 

Silas gave her a long look. “Remarkable. I am intensely curious about this ability, but unfortunately we have other matters to attend to.” He pointed at Cydia with his pencil “After this I would love to do some tests if you’re comfortable.”

 

Cydia shrugged and rolled her eyes.

 

Silas tapped a pencil to the page of the paper “I wanted to know if you knew any Spanish because it says here that the late Mrs. Dobson was a Spaniard. The husband is yet to be found they are waiting on her next of kin, who are presumably, Spaniards.”

 

Cydia gave him a hard look, leaning back in her seat to glare at him. “Really?”

 

Silas shrugged apologetically “You’ll have your hat pulled low as per usual so none of them will see your face. Pretend to cry and barely speak a word of English, it should get us right through.”

 

“Oh Silas that is DEVIOUS.” Cydia gasped and put a hand to her chest in shock.

 

Silas’s mouth was pinched “W-well it would be easier than-”

 

“I love it.” Cydia preened, she put a gloved hand to her face and gave Silas a wink “How angelic in action indeed...” she added with a laugh.

 

Silas gave her a disapproving hum. He tossed Cydia a bag of gaudy jewelry to help in her disguise “You are the most cynical being on the face of the planet. Now hush up and pretend to weep, we’re almost at the coroner’s office.”

 

Silas got out of the cab first. With his jacket buttoned to his chin and his hat pulled down low he looked the part of a manservant. He stood stiffly off to the side and opened the door to the cab.

 

Cydia exited the cab. Her hat was dripping with dark lace. She sniffed and dabbed a handkerchief to her face hidden under the gauzy fabric. Silas took her hand and helped her step down, her steps theatrically dainty.

 

A coroner’s assistant met them as they approached the building. “Um yes, miss?” He was a balding middle-aged man with a simple white frock buttoned up to his neck. He absentmindedly wiped some blood off of his hands onto a cloth hanging from his belt. There was a pouch of surgical knives to his side “How may I assist you?”

 

Cydia burst into a loud bought of fake tears, howling her fake grief and dabbing the handkerchief dramatically. “Donde esta mi hermana? Oh! Mi hermana! La luz de mi vida! Destino tu esta un amante terrible!”

 

Silas coughed, nodding at the assistant, his hat pulled low. “Miss Isabelica De escalona, of the noble house of Escalona, is here to see her sister, the late Adelia Dobson.”

 

Cydia threw herself at the assistant who caught her, a bemused and panicked look across his ruddy face. Silas tried to hide a grimace.

 

“My sister! Oh my poor sister!” Cydia howled and blew her nose into the handkerchief with a loud honk. “Oh how terrible! Oh what cruel fate!”

 

The man who caught her was close to tears himself, overcome with pity for what he thought was a young woman sobbing in his arms “Oh you poor thing!” He patted her on the back and sniffed “Of course you can see her! Oh I’m so sorry! Come in! Come in!”

 

“Gracias.” Cydia pronounced the word with a barcelonian accent. She sniffed and blotted her eyes. “Oh my poor Adelia! But first-” She turned to Silas, her used handkerchief held stiffly out in front of her for him to take “Manservant.” She commanded.

 

Silas sighed and took the used handkerchief from her.

 

The assistant led Cydia in by the arm, murmuring soft condolences to her the entire way. Silas took one quick glance outside, checking the street for onlookers before following the pair of them inside.

 

The coroner’s office looked as if it was a small home that had been retrofitted into a makeshift morgue. The walls were made from dark brick, the wood underneath their feet creaking and groaning. What looked to once be pea green carpeting leading down the hallway was now blotched and stiff with blood. The stench was horrible, a bouquet of various states of human decay rising to greet them. Silas coughed and brought his own handkerchief to his mouth.

 

“This way, this way.” The coroner's assistant led them down a dark hallway “Forgive the mess.” The assistant smiled ruefully “London has a bit of uh...a bit of a space problem when it comes to corpses at the moment. The city graveyards have been declared ‘menaces of the public health’. They say it’s the smell that causes disease, the miasma, but you get used to it.  All these ladies and gents here are waiting to go to one of the yards being built on the outskirts of the city.”

 

He led them down the main hallway. Gurneys lined the hall, all draped in white linen. One could see the profiles of the corpses underneath rising from the ground like levitating spirits. Silas stepped around a hand that was jutting stiffly out of the gurney towards them.

 

The assistant grimaced. “Sorry about that just let me-” He took a hold of the corpse’s arm, bracing one boot against their bicep. With an audible crack the man snapped the corpse’s arm back into place. He huffed, noticeably a bit winded. He wiped his hands on the towel once more. “Sorry they er- get like that...” He looked at Cydia - Or rather madame Isabelica and blushed, the red spreading all the way across his already ruddy cheeks “Nasty business for a woman, I er, I apologize.”

 

Cydia snapped out a black fan. She fanned herself gently, looking over the corpse “Death does not frighten me.” She tilted her neck just so “I can see you are a true man of your profession.”

 

“Golly!” The blush across the coroner’s assistants cheeks was spreading across his balding head “You’re a bricky woman you are!” He led them to a door labeled ‘dead lasses’ in chalk and opened to door for her.

 

“Thank you so much.” Cydia leaned in closer to the man, her voice deceptively dainty “Please I want some time alone with my sister. Can you do that señor?”

 

The man swallowed and nodded nervously, breaking out into a sweat “Y-yes ma’m I most certainly can!”

 

“Gracias.” Cydia tapped the man on the nose and with an elegant swish of her dress closed the door on the man’s face.

 

The coroner’s assistant stood awkwardly in the hallway “I er…” He tapped his fingers together nervously “I will...I will just be out here if you need me…”

 

Cydia smiled at Silas on the inside of the room, her fangs on full display.

 

Silas glared back at her “What in the heavens was that?”

 

Cydia’s smile fell “What was what?”

 

“That!” Silas hissed and motioned towards the closed door.

 

Cydia scoffed and hit Silas lightly with her fan. “That was acting.”

 

“That was RIDICULOUS!” Silas desperately tried to keep his voice down. “You’re going to get us caught! I mean I know I asked you to lie but-”

 

Cydia shrugged “Pretty girls lead silly boys down dark alleys.” She grinned and winked at Silas over the top of her fan “Besides my dear, just remember.” She giggled and tapped his cheek with the end of the fan “All of this was your idea.”

 

Silas groaned, looking back at the door nervously where the coroner’s assistant was assuredly still waiting in the hallway with baited breath “Let’s just get this over with, and when we leave please try and be less...whatever that was…”

 

Cydia giggled, waving off his concern“Fine, fine. I promise to behave...mostly.”

 

The room looked like it used to be a parlor of sorts, bodies were laid on every flat surface, across rows upon rows of mismatched tables. One body even laid stiff as a board between two armchairs. All of the bodies were wrapped with sheets, little paper tags on either their toes or on the twine that tied their cloth bundles together.

 

The pair of them started down the rows of bodies, looking intently at the paper tags. Silas yelped and jumped back when a very large rat wriggled its way from under one of the sheets, squeaking and scurrying across the floor. It had something in its mouth but Silas couldn’t quite see what it was.

 

“They like the eyes.” Cydia murmured absentmindedly.

 

“This is horrible.” Silas held the handkerchief up to his mouth again “I knew about the problem we had with our dead but...I had no idea it was this bad.”

 

Cydia scoffed, reading another paper tag before moving on to the next body “Why do you think London has so many monsters?”

 

Silas looked back at her, his eyebrows furrowed “I beg your pardon?”

 

Cydia cocked her head “My personal theory about why London is so overridden with beasts is because there is so much...meat.” She shrugged and read the tag on the next corpse “Lots of so-called mythical creatures have a certain favorite food you know....” She gave Silas a look “London is notoriously horrible at how they run their graveyards and how they handle their dead. It’s the same reason you don’t leave rubbish out at night. It starts to attract...things…”

 

Silas accidentally bumped into one of the tables, the contents of the linen bag sloshing wetly inside, seeping through the fabric. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his mouth more ferently with his handkerchief as a wave of stench rose up from the liquified mess. “It’s certainly a plausible theory. “ he murmured. His eyes widened as he went over to the next body. “Cydia I found her!”

 

Cydia looked up from the corpse she had been examining. She loosened the shawl around her shoulders and fluttered over to Silas, landing beside him and tucking her wings back under her shawl. She looked at the linen-wrapped body expectantly. The tag indeed read “Adelia Dobson” in looping cursive.

 

Silas pulled the sheet up and-

 

Adelia Dobson lay across the table. She was a small woman, but there was something about her that suggested a fierce nature when she was alive. She had long black hair, large doe eyes and and a belligerent smattering of dark freckles across her cheeks. Her hair was in tangles but it seemed as if whoever had pulled her from the water had done their best to smooth it from her face. Her skin wax waxy and pale, waterlogged and grey. Her lips were blue.

 

Cydia leaned over the corpse, she lifted up her hat to get a better look, her wide black eyes sparkling. “So this is miss Adelia Dobson?”

 

Silas nodded. “Yes, it certainly is.” He retrieved a lense and a pen from his pocket. With his handkerchief still pressed to his mouth he prodded at the victim’s lips with the end of his pen. “The lips are pale. The skin is waterlogged.”

 

He gently tugged up the woman’s eyelid. Silas frowned “They’re bloodshot. She was definitely drowned.”

 

Cydia squinted at the victim’s hair “Silas look at this.” She pointed at the woman’s hairline, the hair there was beginning to become patchy and sparse. “She’s too young for this”

 

Silas leaned in “She is indeed too young for this but, I have heard of signs of premature aging such as hair loss during times of extended stress. I believe this fits in with your theory that she had been held by something for a long time.

 

“Yes that and this of course.” Cydia held up the woman’s hand,waving it through the air stiffly at Silas, the wrist of which was rubbed raw from what looked like the imprint of a large metal cuff. “But we already knew about that.”

 

Silas gave her a look “Stop waving her about! You have no idea where she’s been.”

 

Cydia rested her cheek on the dead woman’s clenched fist. “Honestly Silas. Does it ever get uncomfortable with that broomstick so far up your arse?”

 

Silas growled to himself and took the dead woman’s arm from Cydia and slapped it back down by the woman’s side. “Honestly Cydia!”

 

Something came loose from the dead woman’s fist, rolling across the table, a little metallic clink as it hit the floor.

 

Cydia’s antennae perked with interest. “What was that? A coin?”

 

Silas bent down to retrieve the item. It was a gold medallion, catching the light and sending golden reflections across Silas’s glasses. It was round, about the size of a large coin with a loop at the top where one would attach a chain. A jagged spider was pressed into the metal, the eyes of the little creature shining with little jade gems. Silas turned the medallion over.

 

“There’s an inscription here…” Silas murmured. He adjusted he glasses and leaned forward “To die when to die is right...to strike when to strike is right. We are the unwavering.”

 

Cydia leaned over Silas’s shoulder. She touched one taloned finger to the coin before pulling away with a hiss, shaking out her hand. “There’s magic in this. Not much but…”

 

Silas looked over to where Adelia Dobson laid on the table, pale with her hair in tangles. “What in the heavens did she get into?”

 

There was a knock on the door.

 

Silas pocketed the medallion. Cydia pulled her hat down low and took out her fan, she sniffed, pretending to have been crying. “Yes? Adelante, come in.”

 

The coroner’s assistant peeked meekly in, his shiny balding head peeking through the doorframe like a pale timid egg. “Excuse me miss?” He shrugged apologetically “So sorry to interrupt but there’s-”

 

The coroner’s assistant yelped as another man burst into the room, knocking the smaller man over. The man was built like a brick wall, the doorway almost entirely filled with blue uniform lined with bright copper buttons. Their face was dominated almost entirely by the largest mustache Cydia had ever seen actually growing on a human face. It was like a fat squirrel lounging across their face, she half expected it to run off when he began yelling.

 

“So!” The man bellowed, his formidable arms crossing behind his back “What do we have here? A couple of chuckaboos eh?”

 

The officer turned to Cydia and bowed deeply. “And you must be Miss Isabelica.” He took her hand, and pressed a wet kiss to the glove. “Ah-shon-te mademoiselle!” His accent was atrocious.

 

Cydia flicked open her fan to hide the grimace on her face, fanning herself with quick strokes “Oh my! Hello officer!” She tittered.

 

The officer smiled at her, his mustache curling up with the movement. He patted her hand. “Now what in the world is a respectable woman like yourself doing with a loon like Fletcher here?”

 

Silas’s mouth pressed into a hard line. Apparently his ingenious disguise of a larger than normal hat, didn’t work. Shocking. He looked at the officer earnestly “I was only helping this young woman in her time of need!”

 

The officer stood behind Cydia, his hands on his hips. “This all seems pretty skilamink to me! A loon like yourself! Always up and about disturbing the public peace! Jabbering on about werewolves and fairies and such nonsense! And now trying to take advantage of a woman in her time of mourning?”

 

Cydia was trying not to laugh behind her fan. She flipped the fan down just long enough to mouth “Oh you absolute fiend” to Silas with a wink, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

 

The policeman had his fists to his hips “It’s only your family connections that kept you from the madhouse!”

 

Silas looked down, his shoulders slumping. He swallowed hard, his fingers twitching at his sides “Well I-I-”

 

Cydia’s brows furrowed, her antennae twitching like a cat’s tail. Alright that’s enough.

 

Cydia burst into another rather loud fit of theatrical crying “Oh my sister! Oh my! Oh I feel as if I’m going to faint!” She swooned dramatically, fluttering her fan frantically as she sobbed.

 

“Oh you poor thing!” The officer tended to a faking Cydia who groaned and flopped over in his arms like a fish in a gown “Let me fetch you a cab!”

 

The officer led Cydia down the hall, Cydia groaning and howling her overdramatic woe. Silas followed closely behind him.

 

“Oy.” a voice sounded in the hallway. A man was slouched there against the wall between two gurneys. He was barely dressed in his uniform, only an unbuttoned policeman’s jacket over a shirt and vest with no tie. His clothes were wrinkled and he had dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a messy auburn and his eyes were a deep sharp blue. He had a cigarette held in his rough hands, his nails bitten down. Despite his appearance there was an intelligent and calculating spark in his eyes.

 

“Officer Finnigan.” He explained and held out a hand.

 

Silas nodded and shook hands with the man. “Oh. Hello?” He asked politely.

 

Officer Finnigan motioned towards where the other officer was helping Cydia into a cab “We’re not all as dumb as that insufferable blowhard.” Officer Finnigan whispered. “I know that there are things out there that people mostly like to pretend aren’t real, dark things...understand me?”

 

Silas nodded gravely.

 

“Good.” Finnigan looked at Silas intensely “Dobson, the drowning victim, her husband is rich but he’s a bloody arse. Liked to go tot-hunting down in the slums, Glasgow especially, looking for ladies of the night to accommodate him. He would spend his wad in an opium den, one hand on an opium pipe and the other down a woman’s blouse. Adelia was the fiery sort though, and would go out to drag him back by the ear. I would start in Glasgow if I were you.”

 

Silas pulled back and was surprised to find a card in his hand. It was simple card-stock reading ‘Ciaran Finnigan’ along with a title, office address and postal address.

 

Officer Finnigan put his hands in the pockets of his wrinkled trousers “Just lettin’ you know that you have a friend on the force if ya need one.”

 

Silas nodded. He looked out the window where Cydia was still over-dramatically being helped into a cab. “I need to go, but thank you...” He crossed the hall to the front door and-

 

“Nice trick by the way.” Finnigan muttered, flicking the spent cigarette butt to the ground and extinguishing the little ember with the heel of his boot.

 

Silas turned back to him, his eyebrows furrowed. “What trick?”

 

Finnigan smiled, fishing another cigarette out from a pocket in his vest and setting it between his teeth. “The feathers.” He explained, pointing to his head “Making the antennae look like feathers.”

 

He struck a match on his boot and lit the end of his cigarette, his face briefly illuminated in yellow light before he shook out the flame. He took a puff and smoke streamed out his nose “But they twitch when she’s upset. She didn’t much like the other bloke closer to the end there. Got a bit too personal I would imagine.”

 

Outside, Cydia “Accidentally” hit the other officer roughly in the face with her fan as she pretended to faint. The black lacquered wood slapping across his mustached face with an audible PLAP.

 

“Should prolly warn the lass eh?” Finnigan laughed a bit at that before he began to cough awkwardly into his sleeve.

 

Silas didn’t answer. He didn’t quite know how to answer without giving Cydia away. He left the squat little building and chased after Cydia’s cab, glancing back through the window at Officer Finnigan nervously. The other man watched him leave, an amused smile on his face as he took another draw from his cigarette. He blew out a puff of smoke in Silas’s direction with an ostentatious wink.

 

Cydia’s cab was parked at the corner, just out of sight of the officer that had loaded her into the carriage. When she saw Silas walking down the street, hands in his pockets and looking suspiciously behind him, as if Officer Finnigan was somewhere hiding in a doorway or behind a horse, she leaned out of the cab window.

 

“Well come on!” Cydia yelled at him from the window of the cab. “Get in already we have things to do!”

 

Silas climbed into the booth of the cab, untying the draws on the curtains and letting them hang over the windows. He pulled back one just a sliver to watch Officer Finnigan leave the Coroner’s office. The officer gave the cab Cydia and Silas were in a cheeky wink and a wave before stepping into the street and being lost in a daze of horses and coaches.

 

Silas jerked back from the window, pressing himself into the seat of the cab.

 

Cydia’s brows furrowed “What was that?” She asked, and yes her antennae really did twitch when she was upset. “What took you so long?”

 

“I got some more information on Mrs Adelia Dobson.” Silas stared at the red velvet curtains, not daring to open them again. “And I think I met a...friend? Or at least he said he was. I’m not sure…”

 

Cydia hummed noncommittally “Do we know our destination then?”

 

Silas nodded “Glasgow slums. Mr. Dobson liked to sample the opium dens and frequent the ladies of the night there. Adelia would go after him and drag him home.” He held up the coin-like medallion that sparkled in the sparse light, the jade eyes of the creature glimmering. “I’ll bet that’s where we will find the owner of this medallion.”

 

Cydia laughed, her antennae curling with pleasure. She hit the roof of the cab where the cabman was sitting. “Cabman? To Glasgow!”

 

The cabman paused, leaning down to the window into cab “Are you quite sure miss? Glasgow is a rough part of town...”

 

Cydia laughed “We’ll pay you double your usual fare.”

 

“Right-O!” came a call from the cabman outside and with that he urged the horses forward, lurching the cab into motion.

 

The Glasgow slum was one of the worst in London. The buildings were caked with soot and grime. Houses packed haphazardly together held seven people per room. Drunken men littered the sidewalks at all hours of the day and night. Women screamed at hordes of unwashed children that wreaked havoc through the neighborhood. Other women stood at the corners, feathers in their hair and rouge painted on their cheeks, yelling out lewd invitations for a price.

 

“Adelia went down here alone?” Silas looked horrified out of the cab window. Someone dumped out a chamber pot from a third floor window and into the street below. The drunk man the sewage landed on didn’t even react much, letting the sewage drip from his hat as he took another swig from the bottle in his hands.

 

Cydia looked out into the street. Children screamed and threw rocks at their cab. The cabbie outside yelped and put up an arm for protection. “They did say she was fiery.”

 

The cabman leaned down from where he sat on a bench on top of the compartment Cydia and Silas were in, to a little window that was between his legs. “Are you two quite sure this is where you want to be?” The old man looked concerned at the both of them “I don’t want to go any further, I like keepin’ me head, but when I turn tail and run I don’t mind takin’ either of you back with me.”

 

“No.” Cydia answered back “This is fine. Thank you.”

 

The cabbie shrugged and accepted the money, the double fare accompanied by a fat tip, that Silas proffered. Cydia and Silas watched the cab leave from where they stood in the filthy street.

 

A woman staggered out of one of the houses that lined the way, her dirty hair in clumps around her head and one of her breasts showing. She threw a bottle at the house across from her’s.

 

“GERTRUDE YOU FAT DISEASED GOAT! COME OUT HERE AND GET A THRASHIN’ YOU NEEDLE-PISSIN WHORE!” The bottle smashed against the other house.

 

Another woman came out of the house that the bottle had crashed into. She was just as dirty and disheveled as the first woman. “OH COME OFF IT YOU THREE- PENNY UPRIGHT! YOU SHANKER WITH LEGS! TROLLOP! YOU WOULD GUTTER LANE THE DEVIL ‘IMSELF FOR A FARTHING!” This was then accompanied by a variety of lewd hand gestures.

 

The first woman screamed and ran across the street. Both women engaging in a drunken brawl on the sidewalk, involving a lot of hair-pulling and screaming.

 

Silas had his arms crossed, looking over the scene, his mouth pinched into a tight line. “I don’t want to be here.” He announced.

 

Cydia sighed and patted his arm, turning to continue down the street “Come on then, we should find a bar to ask some questions at.”

 

Cydia and Silas continued down the cramped and dirty streets, stepping over drunkards passed out in the sidewalks as they went. A group of filthy children stepped into their path.

 

“Oy!” The largest of the boys yelled, he couldn’t have been older than fifteen. He slapped a thick leather belt in his palms. The boys behind him were similarly armed with belts, small knives and clubs. “Empty your pockets! Come on!”

 

Cydia sighed and stepped in front of Silas, cracking her knuckles. Silas sighed and obligingly stepped to the side.

 

The head boy laughed “Am I supposed to be scared by some wench? I-”

 

Cydia took the boy by the scruff of his shirt, lifting him up roughly off the ground. She brought the now terrified boy closer to her face. She hissed, her sharp needle teeth on display, her mandibles sliding from her throat and unfolding to split her cheeks further apart in a gruesome grimace.

 

“GO HOME TO YOUR MOTHER YOU STUPID LITTLE CRETIN!” Cydia commanded, throwing the little punk into the other children who screamed and ran.

 

“She’s one of the spider witch’s whores!” The head boy spat on the sidewalk in front of Cydia before scrabbling up from the walkway and following his cohorts in their hasty retreat.

 

“Hmmm…” Silas hummed, turning to Cydia, a curious look on his face “They mentioned a Spider witch?”

 

Cydia tapped a claw to her lips, her mandibles retreating back into her mouth with a wet slither “Sounds about as much of a lead on a creature as any.”

 

Cydia and Silas came to a bar. The bar was housed in a fat squat brick building, the window on the outside of the building had recently been smashed, perhaps by a drunken patron, wooden planks covering the large hole. The place was packed, filled to the brim with drunk men and women, laughing and attempting to dance in the tiny shithole of a pub.

 

A toothless man giggled as Cydia passed him. He reached out a grubby mitt and grabbed roughly at her ass. Cydia looked back at him, a dark expression in her eyes. She grabbed him by the wrist and squeezed, the bones cracking under her deceptively delicate hands. The man howled and pulled away, running into the night holding his wounded wrist in front of him.

 

A large-breasted woman holding a tray of beers paused and watched the man go. She had long tattered blonde hair, wearing a simple beige dress with a red shawl around her shoulders “What happened to ol’ Shamus?”

 

Cydia shrugged “Got his hand stuck in a mousetrap I figure.” She smiled, her voice low.

 

The woman laughed, raising a hand to cover where she had lost a couple of teeth. She was middle-aged, her blonde curly hair frizzing out from her in every direction. There was a tattoo on one of her breasts peeking out from the top of her corset, perhaps the beginning of a rose or an anchor. “A mousetrap! I suppose you gave him a scare?” She giggled and handed Cydia a large stein of beer from the tray in her hands and winked “To your good health miss! And skill with mousetraps!”

 

Cydia smiled and raised the stein “And to you, for making a girl feel welcome.”

 

The woman handed off the beers to a couple of men and women along the far wall. She puttered off back to behind the bar and began filling more steins. Silas sat down awkwardly at the bar in front of him. Next to him there was a man that had fallen asleep on the rough wooden counter, steadily making a puddle of drool around him.

 

The barmaid smiled at Silas “So what will it be?”

 

Silas wiped the bit of counter in front of him awkwardly with a handkerchief. He turned to the barmaid with a smile “Yes, ah... I would like... one.”

 

The maid cocked an eyebrow, looking at Silas inquisitively as she cleaned a glass with a filthy-looking rag “One what?”

 

Silas stared hard for a moment. He knew absolutely nothing about alcohol. He grimaced and shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. “...One?”

 

The maid sighed and smiled fondly down at him like he was a toddler that wandered into her bar. “A beer then.” She patted him fondly on the cheek.

 

Cydia pushed the drunk man off of the stool next to Silas, watching the unconscious man slide to the floor in a snoring heap before she stole his seat. She clunked her stein onto the table and knocked shoulders with Silas amicably.

 

The barmaid came back to the two of them, handing Silas a considerably smaller stein of beer, around half the size of Cydia’s. “For ye’ health.” the woman smiled and pinched one of Silas’s cheeks. “Don’t drink it too fast luv, you’ll give y’self a headache.”

 

Silas took a tentative sip but then grimaced, setting the beer down onto the counter again. Cydia giggled at the look on his face, her stein already half-empty.

 

“So what brings a couple of finer folks down to our humble little neighborhood?” The barmaid asked conversationally, spitting on a glass to shine it.

 

In the background one of the patrons vomited loudly onto the floor. Silas tried his best to ignore it. “We’re enquiring after the fate of one Mrs. Dobson.”

 

The barmaid shrugged “Can’t really say I know a Mrs.Dobson…”

 

“She would come around to pull her husband out of an opium den ever now and then.” Silas helpfully proffered. “A Mister Declan Dobson.”

 

The barmaid shook her head, her frizzy curls bouncing “Sorry lad, that’s fifteen gals a week.”

 

“Short, pretty.” Cydia offered “Long black hair. Her name was Adelia.”

 

The barmaid straightened up “Now I do know an Adelia...Came in around two, maybe three weeks ago looking for her bastard of a husband. I don’t know if she ever found him though…” the barmaid laughed and snorted, the corners of her eyes crinkling with mirth “I hope she did though! She seemed the type to have given him a good wallop!”

 

Silas sighed. “But you didn’t see where she went?”

 

The barmaid sighed. “I can’t say I did… It’s a dangerous town for a lady…”

 

A man in a thick overcoat muscled his way up to the bar. “Barkeep!” His breath smelled like stale alcohol. “Hows a bouts another round eh?”

 

The barmaid turned away from him dismissively, handing out another couple of steins to patrons paying with stacks of small change “Paid with what? You ain’t got nothin’ in your purse. Spent it all a couple of hours ago. Ain’t it time ya went?”

 

The man grit his rotting teeth and reached over the bar, grabbing the woman by the front of her dress and pulling her towards him “I SAID GIVE ME A DRINK YOU CRUSTY OLD DOLLYMOP! BEFORE I-”

 

Before either Cydia or Silas could react the barmaid pulled on a little leather cord around her neck, pulling up a pendant from her bosom and brandishing it at the man. The man’s eyes widening with horror as he pulled away from the woman. He turned tail and ran out of the bar without another word.

 

The pendant was a little clay circle, impressed with the same spider symbol on the medallion found in Adelia’s hand.

 

The barmaid glared out at where the man had gone “And stay out you dirty wanker.” She then spat on the floor derisively. She tucked the pendant back into her bosom and went about continuing with her work.

 

Silas’s eyes were wide “Excuse me miss?” He looked over at the barmaid, practically buzzing with excitement “May I ask what that is?”

 

The barmaid handed out another couple of steins to a pair of women over the bar. “What what is dear?”

 

Cydia looked at the women who had just paid for their drinks. One was a tall black woman, her hair wrapped in faded patterned fabric, a long scar traveling across her face and over one eye, her eyes were sharp, calculating like a cat about to pounce. The other woman was short and plump, covered with freckles, her red hair in a long braid behind her, her face welcoming like a freshly baked rhubarb pie. They didn’t seem to stand out in any way, but there was something odd about the way they moved. They weren’t drunk, they weren’t laughing they were...deliberate...purposeful.

 

Silas didn’t seem to notice the women, continuing his questioning of the barmaid “That necklace! Where did it come from?”

 

With Cydia watching the two women under the lace of her hat she could see it, the glance they sent over to the barmaid, meeting eyes for just a moment.

 

“An myth.” The barmaid replied, turning her eyes away from the two women. “Nothing but a myth. Not something a boy like you would be interested in.”

 

Silas was undeterred, his smile bright “I love myths though! Please do enlighten me?”

 

The barmaid turned away from him “No it really is silly I-”

 

Silas pulled out the medallion he had retrieved from the morgue out of his pocket, showing the barmaid the spider symbol on the front. “Can you tell me what this is?” Silas looked up at her hopefully “Really any information you can-”

 

The barmaid’s eyes widened, the gold and Jade of the medallion sending shocks of green and yellow light “How in the heavens did you-”

 

“The superstition of silly women!” Another bar patron cut in on the conversation, wrapping a hand around Silas’s shoulders and sloshing beer about “A demon whispered about in sewing circles! The protector of the women of Glasgow! HA!”

 

The barmaid slammed a beer stein onto bar with a loud clatter. “I WILL NOT HAVE SUCH TALK IN MY BAR!”

 

The man smiled and continued, a challenging look in his eyes as he stared at the barmaid, his smile wide and loose “They say she’s a spider” He wiggled his fingers in front of Silas “...Luring away men to wrap up and eat!”

 

“Only the bastards…” The barmaid whispered, tugging her pendant out and thumbing it. “A demon to drag all you bastards to hell.”

 

The man and the barmaid shared a harsh look at each other.

 

“HA!” The man turned away and laughed. He brought his stein back up to his lips “A woman’s demon.”

 

The man left and the barmaid leaned down towards Silas.

 

“Get in the first cab you see.” She whispered, her voice shaking “And for your own bloody sake...please don’t come back…”

 

Silas’s brow furrowed, he raised a finger “But I didn’t even-”

 

Cydia took him roughly by the shoulder, dragging him off of his barstool. She pushed him out of the bar and into the night.

 

Silas sputtered “Cydia what are y-”

 

Cydia continued to push him down the street. “You were gaining attention.”

 

Silas resisted Cydia pushing him along “What? From who?”

 

“The two women at the bar.” Cydia looked back and sure enough the short red-headed woman and the tall black woman were casually leaving the bar. “Oh damn it all.” Cydia growled, pushing Silas to go faster.

 

Silas dug in his heels, the rubber squeaking loudly against the street. “Cydia stop!”

 

“NOT NOW SILAS!” Cydia hissed.

 

Silas turned around “No! Tell me what’s going on!”

 

Cydia’s antennae twitched, she whirled around just in time to dodge a shining blade that had been swung at her head. Her attacker rebounded, the edge of a sword sending sparks in the night as it ran across the brick street.

 

Silas yelped and Cydia put a hand up in front of him. “Silas get back!”

 

It was the tall woman from the bar. She held up a long katana, her scarred face reflecting in the immaculately polished metal. “You two are coming with me.” She announced, her voice was a dark promise. “One way or another.”

 

“In pieces or in whole!” The other red-headed woman stepped out from a doorway. There was a wide smile on her freckled face. “Sorry ‘bout that Ro.” She addressed the other woman “You’re a bit too fast for me love!” She reached under her petticoat and pulled out two wicked looking steel axes, spinning them in her hands deftly “I got me other charms though!”

 

She ran towards Cydia, her axes raised. She slashed at Cydia and she dodged once again, a flurry of fast blows exchanged between the two women before the axe digging deep into the brick wall behind her. The woman grunted and pulled out the axe with an impressive display of strength. She blew a stray strand of red hair from her face. “Yer a fast one ain’t cha?”

 

She jumped up onto the brick wall across from them, her heels clicking against the hard surface, she used her momentum to flip off of the brick, baring her twin axes down on Cydia.

 

“Cydia!” Silas exclaimed, his eyes wide with fear.

 

Cydia growled and caught an axe with each hand.

 

The red-headed woman’s eyes were wide, hanging limply from where she refused to drop her axes “What the-”

 

Cydia howled and with her hold on the axes threw the woman across the alley, slamming her roughly into the brick wall on the other side with a painful sounding crunch.

 

“Hettie!” The tall woman looked back at where she had fallen. She turned back to Cydia, her teeth bared in a gruesome frown. “You’re going to pay for that.” She promised darkly. She brought up her sword, her stance wide and ready.

 

Cydia flexed her hands. She smiled sharp-toothed behind the black lace, her hips cocked as she tugged off her satin gloves. “Hold these.” She told Silas as she flung the satin garments behind her. Silas sputtered as they hit him across the face.

 

She flexed her hands, her talons extending from the deceptively dainty digits. Her hands were covered in a pale exoskeleton.

 

The tall woman’s bros furrowed, one of them bisected by the scar running down her face. “Ye ain’t a human.” She growled, circling Cydia warily.

 

“No.” Cydia smiled, showing off her sharp teeth. “Can’t say I am.”

 

The woman lunged at Cydia in a move almost too fast to process, a blur of vengeful woman and gleaming sword. Cydia dodged, crawling up the wall halfway to avoid an attack, screeching and fluttering off the wall, slashing at the woman  tearing at the front of her dress, expecting to draw blood but instead-

 

Underneath the woman’s clothes there was a bronze chest plate peeking through the tattered fabric, bands riveted together horizontally.

 

Cydia hummed “What are you people?”

 

The woman smiled. Her teeth peeking through her thick lips like the glint of a dagger. “We are the unwavering.”

 

Cydia’s eyes widened but before she could react the woman lunged toward her with another flurry of attacks, the sword flicking through the air with an audible hum, flashing through the night, landing slash upon slash that Cydia caught in her claws and against her forearms, the friction sending sparks through the alley.

 

With inhuman speed Cydia fluttered to the right, jabbing her claws into the woman’s wrist like an icepick. The woman howled, fighting against the pain to keep her grip on her sword, she rallied back, slashing again. Cydia fluttered above her, kicking down onto the woman, pinning her to the filthy street and wrenching the sword from her hands. She hissed and raised her talons above her, baring down on the woman’s throat.

 

“That’s quite enough!” A voice sounded through the street, just before Cydia landed her blow.

 

The short red-headed woman was behind Silas, an arm around his neck and a revolver pressed to his temple. “Get off her.” She hissed, blood dripping from her nose and down her lips, a steely look in her eyes “Unless you want pretty boy here to get a brain fulla lead.”

 

Cydia slowly rose from where she was over the other woman, letting her rise up from the street, holding her bloodied hand to her chest.

 

“Took you long enough Hettie.” The tall dark woman huffed and put a palm over her fluttering heartbeat.

 

“Sorry Ro.” Hettie smiled ruefully, spitting out a bloody tooth and smiling brightly “It took a tick to get me head on straight. She’s a hard hitter she is.”

 

From the dark streets of Glasgow women came out of alleyways and houses, slowly advancing on the scene, forming a circle around Silas and Cydia. From their petticoats they pulled out brass knuckles, swords, maces and axes. One woman perched on a rooftop above them, her face shrouded with a black shawl pulled up over her head, pulling out an entire crossbow from her grey petticoats, unfolding the apparatus and aiming it at Cydia. Her eyes black glittering pieces of coal as she regarded Cydia.

 

Cydia glanced at the crossbow above her and then back at the redheaded woman in front of her. She raised an eyebrow at the short woman who had a gun to her partner’s head. “So did you have to hop to do that?”

 

Silas’s back was bent back in a comical way to accommodate for the tiny redheaded woman to press a gun to his head. His gangly legs were bent awkwardly and his back was bent at a steep angle. The woman grumbled “Oh shut up you!”

 

“She did.” Silas answered, nodding and doing his best to suppress a smile, his expression somewhere between fear and the face one makes when presented with a kitten “It was adorable.”

 

The woman jabbed the revolver harder against Silas’s skull “What about me pressin’ a gun to ya head do you not understand?” She thunked the gun against Silas’s temple and he winced.

 

“Ow.” Silas announced, showing a disproportionate amount of concern considering the situation he was in “That hurt.”

 

“Well that’s what ya get!” The woman frowned at him, her eyebrows furrowed “Ye ain’t got no sense! Talkin’ back to a woman with a gun!”

 

“You have the face of a wood nymph and the temper of a pit bull.” Silas told her where he was bent into an odd shape in front of her. Once again displaying the fact that he had absolutely no sense of self preservation.

 

“I swear.” Cydia sighed, looking over Silas judgmentally. Trying to calculate just how she was going to get herself and her hapless human to safety “You have the self-preservation skills of a lemming.”

 

“Just shut up and move!” She kicked at the back of his legs “Come on! We’re takin’ you to the boss!”

 

The woman with the crossbow trained on Cydia, jumped onto a lower archway, bracing her feet expertly on the brick as she climbed down as silent as a cat, not once taking her aim off of Cydia.

 

The smaller woman began to march forward, Silas still bent out like a gangly table in front of her. Silas attempted to comply, his feet kicking out in front of him as she moved him forewards, but only managed a couple of steps walking like he was dancing the limbo before slipping on a wet brick and falling with a yelp.

 

Hettie sighed, looking down at the gangly man with a resigned look on her face, her arm still around his neck. She rubbed the bridge of her nose with the hand still holding the gun “Rowena…”

 

The taller black woman had a hand to her mouth, hiding her smile “Yes Hettie?” Her voice was strained with the effort not to snicker. She bit her lip.

 

Hettie pouted “Can you take me prisoner luv?”

 

Rowena nodded “Yes dear, I can take your prisoner.” She took out a smaller knife from her petticoats and walked over to her and Silas.

 

Hettie allowed Silas to stand as the taller Rowena came to take over, pressing a short knife to Silas’s throat and easily walking home down the street.

 

Cydia growled, her talons flexing at her side.

 

“Ye too.” came a harsh grating voice, a strained low whisper. The woman behind Cydia touched her back with the tip of her crossbow. Cydia could feel a cold metal arrowtip against the exoskeleton plating of her back.

 

“There’s poison in them arrows.” The harsh grating whisper continued “Ye may survive me first shot, but ye’d be dead in a hour. Human and beast alike fall to it. I can assure you that.”

 

They were led down the street, Silas being at knifepoint, Cydia with a crossbow at her back. Hettie behind them, a gun in each hand as she aimed at both Cydia and Silas. The contingent of women flanking them on either sides. Drunks fled as they walked by, others watched them warily, some women leaned out of the windows of the shabby houses that lined the street, nodding at the women who passed or raising a fist, clay or cast iron pendants with the mark of the spider pressed into them dangling from their hands.

 

They came to a squat brick home, their guards knocked on the door. A peephole in the wood opened on the inside. “To strike when to strike is right.” Came a rough female voice from the inside.

 

“To die when to die is right.” Came the reply from the women holding Silas and Cydia captive, speaking perfectly in sync. Silas and Cydia shared a look.

 

The door was opened and Silas and Cydia were ushered inside. Painted paper panels lined the room, each panel was delicately decorated in the traditional japanese style, depicting an ocean scene that stretched all the way around the room. In front of the painted panels wooden racks displayed all manner of weaponry, from the traditional katana, kama, wakizashi and bows and arrows to western style axes and polearms. There were also an impressive amount of guns, from the early matchlock to the more modern revolver, all expertly polished with care.There was a squat square table in the middle of the room, lined with plush cushions, a painted teapot in the center of the table. The teapot was made from green celadon, tiny white cranes painted onto the surface, steam rose up from the spout cheerfully.

 

On the far-end of the room, shrouded in darkness there was a western-style desk. A figure sat behind the desk there, an intricate jade-green pipe in their taloned hands, carved into the shape of a dragon. They exhaled, smoke pouring from their mouth.

 

In the darkness four bright red eyes shone at Cydia and Silas. Something clicked as the figure moved, insectoid legs shifted in the darkness, pulling closer to the figure.

 

“How interesting.” The figure spoke. The figure turned to them and rose, something fell as they stood, slamming down in front of the desk and into the light. In the light Cydia and Silas could see that it was the corpse of a man, his skin was grey and shriveled, his hands contorted into claws in front of him, his mouth open in a silent scream, his eyes rolled back into his head.

 

Silas yelped and stepped back, one of the guards stepped behind him to stop him. The guards that had brought them in took rope from their petticoats, pulling Silas’s hands behind his back and wrapping his wrists with the rope. Cydia hissed as they approached her with the rope but relented when Rowena gave her a stern look, pressing her dagger to Silas’s throat, the unspoken threat made clear.

 

The figure stepped daintily over the corpse and into the light. The four red eyes that had shown in the darkness had now been reduced to two, whatever insectoid appendages there had been in the darkness were now hidden under a human disguise. The woman before them was lovely, with high cheekbones, thin lips and jade-green eyes that glimmered, sharp and intelligent like that of a predator’s. Inky black hair flowed down her shoulders and past her waist. She wore a green kimono, her obi was tied loosely in the front, the garment falling off her shoulders and exposing lurid swathes of skin. The pattern on the kimono moved, storm clouds billowing across a rough sea. On a gold chain around her neck was a golden medallion matching the one Silas had taken from Adelia’s corpse.

She crossed the room to stand in front of Cydia. She took a puff from her pipe and exhaled slowly, swirling plumes of smoke escaping her mouth. With the hand not holding the pipe she reached out and took the hat off of Cydia’s head, exposing her black pupiless eyes and antennae. She trailed one talon down Cydia’s cheek. “Lovely.” She murmured cocking her head and looking at Cydia like a pretty butterfly in a jar. “I have not encountered one like yourself.”

 

Cydia jerked her face away, staring challengingly up at the other woman who smiled.

 

“I believe some introductions are in order.” the woman put a taloned hand to her chest, over the spider medallion that hung around her neck. “I am called Hama. I am a Jorogumo, the demoness of Glasgow, the protector of women.” She motioned towards the shriveled corpse beside her desk, the eyes of the corpse staring up at them blankly “killer of their tormentors.”

 

Silas stared horrified at the corpse, his mouth hanging open. Hama put a taloned finger under his jaw and closed it for him. “Don’t give me that look.” She cooed, running a hand through Silas’s hair “The slums are filled with rapists and wife-beaters. I choose my meals carefully.”

 

She turned towards Cydia “Which is why I don’t take kindly to others hunting in my territory, especially not when they are taking the women I have sworn to protect.” She smoothed down a piece of Cydia’s hair “So even if it is quite the waste of such a pretty creature…”

 

She growled and her hands sharpened, thick plates of black exoskeleton forming on her fingers and up her wrists. Another set of eyes opened below her human set, smaller and slightly offset, both pairs turning a bright crimson. She grabbed Cydia by the front of her dress and lifted her up from the ground.

 

She pulled Cydia in to face her, both women growling, their mouths full of needle-sharp teeth. “WHAT.” The jorogumo growled lowly in a voice that seemed to shake the furniture around them “HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY GIRLS?”

 

Silas’s eyes were wide as he watched Cydia struggle in the Jorogumo’s grasp “Stop! She hasn’t killed anyone!”

 

Hama turned to face him “AND YOU!” She dropped Cydia roughly and turned to Silas, she slashed a taloned hand across his front, ripping the pockets of his jacket and making the medallion he had taken from Adelia’s corpse fall to the floor, clinking metallically onto the wooden floor. “HOW DID YOU COME TO GET THIS?” She picked him up and shook him roughly.

 

Cydia flexed her claws, her sharp talons cutting through the rope that bound her “GET AWAY FROM HIM!” She howled and pounced on the Jorogumo, knocking her roughly onto the floor, straddling her and pressing her talons into the Jorogumo’s soft neck.

 

“Mistress!” The guards in the room took out their swords, guns and bows, training them on Cydia.

 

Hama laughed where she laid on the floor, looking up at Cydia with a smile. “Pretty and full of surprises.” She batted her eyes up at Cydia a wistful look on her face “It really is too bad that I have to kill you.”

 

Cydia pressed her claws into the soft column of her throat, feeling the staccato heartbeat there. “Call off your goons.” Cydia hissed, leaning forward, her voice low in a dire promise “Or I break your neck.”

 

“Ma’m” Silas leaned down towards Hama, his hands still tied behind his back.

 

“Yes human?” Hama hummed, still staring up at Cydia, her voice unconcerned “What is it?”

 

“We received this medallion in our investigation of the murder of Miss Adelia Dobson, she was holding it when her body was pulled from The Thames.”

 

“Mhmmm?” Hama hummed, still staring up at Cydia.

 

“You mentioned that someone has been taking your girls?” Silas asked, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

 

“Yes.” Hama didn’t take her eyes off of Cydia for even a moment. “They are disappearing from Glasgow at night. Prostitutes, the homeless, the police don’t care...They don’t care about the people here, think they’ve disappeared themselves...but we know the truth… Something is taking them…”

 

Silas smiled and licked his lips “Adelia had also most likely been taken from Glasgow! I think we’re hunting the same thing!”

 

Hama finally turned to Silas then, a wide sharp-toothed smile splitting her face, her green eyes shining. “Well then. I suppose that means we’re on the same side then.”

 

In one swift motion Hama braced her feet against the floor and surged upwards, knocking Cydia from her chest with a yelp. She wrapped a hand around Cydia’s waist and dipped her, batting her eyelashes at the other woman.

 

“I think.” Hama purred “That this is going to be the start of something beautiful.”

 

Cydia hissed and punched her in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment! Comment! Comment! I love comments and I really do want to make something real out of this story and these characters and that means getting feedback! Any thoughts at ALL are HELLA HELPFUL! So thank you and if you read please comment literally ANY thoughts you have.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Constructive criticism is always appreciated! Tell me what you think!


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